The Defiant (32 page)

“Not so tough without your gun, are you?” he says, with a grin. “Next, I'll take your other eye. Leave you for dead in the ditch.”

“You will have to answer for your insubordination!” the soldier says to him angrily, holding up his fists to his face like a boxer. “Assaulting an officer of the United Northern Alliance is punishable by death—”

As he says the final word, the other man strikes out with a fist and catches the soldier in the jaw. The soldier is knocked backward, and stumbles to the ground, dazed.

“Insulting me is punishable by getting your ass whipped,” the man says. “Without your guns and technology, you don't have any power.”

Gadya turns to me. “I like where this is headed,” she says cheerfully.

But I don't. It just makes me feel queasy.

Gadya turns back to the fight. “Give him hell!” she calls out. Other voices in the crowd encourage the man as he advances on the soldier.

“I'll make sure you get arrested,” the soldier says, spitting out blood. “I'll make sure your family gets arrested too!” He's looking around for someone to come and rescue him. A UNA convoy
truck, or a helicopter. But all of those things are gone now.

The crowd is laughing and jeering at him. I wonder how many lives this soldier is responsible for ruining. How many parents he killed. How many children he orphaned. How many normal citizens he got locked up. I think about all my friends who died fighting men like this one. I also think about my dad, who would still be alive were it not for the UNA.

So I do nothing to intervene. I just watch. This man made his own decision to join the UNA. Now he must pay the price. He has already lost an eye. I'm sure much more is next.

The man in the flannel shirt advances on him again. The soldier gets up, ready to fight. But he's no match for the other man.

The man runs straight at him and slams the soldier's bloody face with a barrage of fists. The soldier is knocked to the ground again. The man stands over him and begins stomping his chest with his feet. I hear the crack of ribs breaking. The crowd rushes to join in. Soon, I can't see the soldier anymore because of the torrent of violent blows. They keep kicking him.

“This revolution is going to be easier than I thought,” Gadya says.

I hear the soldier scream in agony as the crowd continues to brutalize him. They keep punching and kicking him in a bloodthirsty frenzy.

“We should keep moving,” Liam says softly.

“Why?” Gadya asks. “These are my kind of people.”

“They're getting out of control,” I say. “Things could turn bad for us.”

Liam nods. “They might come after our bikes next—and we won't be able to stop them. There's too many of them. We need to get past them while they're occupied.”

So we keep walking our bikes as fast as we can, putting distance between ourselves and the group of people attacking the soldier.

We're stuck in the crowd, which seems to be endless. It's just a massive exodus of people from the suburbs heading into the city. There's no way to escape from them. I'm not even sure why they're traveling in this direction. Probably to help join the revolt against the government. Or maybe they think the city still has electricity.

These are the very people we need to enlist to help us in taking apart the UNA. Still, I'm uneasy. I don't even know how many of these people are normal, and how many work for the UNA and are just hiding that fact out of self-preservation. There's no way to know.

It's then that a rumbling sound comes from the distance. For a moment, I think it's some kind of blast wave. I stop my bike. So do Liam and Gadya.

I get jostled by the crowd. Some people keep moving, pushing roughly past us. They have all heard the sound, and they are talking and murmuring among themselves.

The sound gets louder.

“What the hell is that?” Gadya asks.

“I don't know,” I tell her.

Liam cocks his head to listen. “Something's headed our way. Some kind of vehicle.”

“But everything should be disabled by now,” Gadya says. “Our entire plan is based on that!”

“Shhh,” I tell her, trying to listen.

The sound increases in volume again. It almost sounds like a feeler, but larger. Then I see something come into view above the trees to our right.

“Look!” a voice screams.

“A helicopter!” someone else yells.

Gadya curses. “How did it survive the EMP?” she asks. “If David screwed up, I'm going to kill him!”

The helicopter approaches rapidly. We stand there with the crowd, trying to blend in. Some people start running for the trees, but most remain on the road, looking up. Without any guns, there is no way to take this helicopter out of the sky. And if it has guns, it's going to be able to kill a lot of people.

The sound of the helicopter gets louder. As it nears, I see why it probably survived the EMP. The entire thing, except for the glass windshield, is coated with thick metal plates. Probably made out of lead, to block the radiation.
Was the UNA prepared for this? Did they know about our plan?
My heart sinks. If they were prepared, then we did all of this for nothing.

But then a voice blares out from loudspeakers mounted on the bottom of the helicopter. “Alenna!” the voice calls out, sounding inexplicably elated. “Gadya! And Liam too! We found you!”

The crowd looks confused, but I feel a surge of joy. This is not some random UNA helicopter. This craft belongs to the rebels. I know this, because I recognize the voice, even through the noise of the rotors and the distortion of the speakers.

“It's Cass,” I say.

“What? For real?” Gadya asks. “Are you sure?”

“It's her all right,” Liam says. “I'd know that voice anywhere.”

“But she failed the test to come here!”

“So did Rika,” I point out. “There must have been a second wave of rebels sent over here or something. Or maybe she stowed away on a plane. With Cass, anything is possible, right?”

The helicopter turns in the sky as it buzzes the crowd.

“I see you guys!” Cass's voice calls out. “I'm here to give you a ride into the city! It's time to start fighting!”

The crowd is starting to scream happily and surge all around us. They can tell this isn't a UNA helicopter. They are not going to be shot at. But the crowd still poses a problem for us. Everyone wants to get on board the helicopter.

Liam voices my concern: “If that helicopter lands, then it's going to be mobbed by the crowd. They'll never let it take off again, even if they mean well.”

“So what do we do?” I ask.

Liam stares up at the sky. “It's not up to us. It's up to Cass and whoever's piloting the helicopter.”

The helicopter has gone overhead and is preparing to turn back around and fly over our heads again. It's then that I see a tangle of ropes and wooden beams get shoved out the open doorway.

For a second, I'm afraid they'll fly up and get caught in the blades of the helicopter, but then I see that there's a weight on the bottom of them. The ropes and beams fall down beneath the helicopter, swaying. It's a rope ladder.

“Well, I guess Cass solved the problem for us,” I say with a sigh. “I don't think she has any plans of landing the helicopter.”

At the same time, like she's reading my thoughts, I hear Cass blare over the loudspeakers, “You can do this, guys! C'mon!”

The helicopter gets lower. Other members of the crowd start to realize what's going on, and they want to get on board too.

I put down my bicycle and hold out my knife. “Keep your distance!” I scream. People start backing away from me. “We're rebels from Island Alpha! This is part of a plan. We need to get on this helicopter.”

“You're from Island Alpha?” a voice calls out, sounding startled. “But nobody comes back from there.”

“She's telling the truth,” Liam bellows. “We need to get to
New Chicago as fast as possible. Don't get in our way. We're all on the same side.”

“How do we know you don't work for the government?” a man asks Liam, sounding angry.

“Do I look like I work for the government?” Gadya sneers, showing off her prominent tattoos. “Get real!”

“You can have our bikes,” Liam tells the people. Both he and Gadya have dropped theirs as well. “But if you come near us, we will kill you.”

Cass helps guide the helicopter above us and it hovers there. “Climb on board!” she says. “Hurry!”

I don't need much encouraging. The ladder is closest to me, so I grab at it. But I'm not tall enough to reach it. Liam manages to leap and get it. All around us, the wary crowd is watching. I'm not sure if they want to hurt us, or if they're just surprised at what's happening.

The helicopter lowers itself a bit more and Liam hands me the ladder. “You first!” he yells at me over the noise.

I grab the ladder and feel the rope in my hands. I start scrambling up, using the wooden beams to support my feet. Gadya grabs the ladder too and starts coming up after me. Liam brings up the rear, flashing a glare at anyone who looks like they might want to hitch a ride with us.

The wind lashes at me as I keep climbing up the swaying ladder. I glance up and see Cass looking down at me from inside the helicopter. She's smiling broadly. She looks just like I remember her. “C'mon, girl!” she calls out jubilantly.

I don't know how she found us. But then I remember that Cass is an expert at technology. She learned it from her rebel cell before she got sent to the wheel. So maybe she had some way of
tracking us. Or maybe she just knew we would be on this road because it's the fastest route to New Chicago.

I keep climbing, hand over hand, relieved and excited to see her and the other rebels. I know that Cass is a fierce warrior—just like me, Gadya, and Liam. With her on our side, there is even more of a chance that we will succeed.

I reach the top of the ladder. It's swaying a lot now in the wind. I glance down and see that Gadya is struggling to hang on. Liam is trying to help her.

Cass sticks her hands out. “Grab on to me,” she says. Leather bracelets cover the scars on her wrists.

“I'm trying,” I tell her.

With one hand I cling to the rope, but with my other, I take her hand in mine. I clutch on to her as hard as I can, and she does the same. She starts pulling me into the helicopter using all of her strength. Within seconds, I'm inside, sprawled on the metal floor.

I lie there for a moment, catching my breath. Then I clamber onto my knees to help the others.

I turn around, and with Cass's help, bring Gadya inside as well. She holds on to me to keep her balance.

Liam is the last one to get into the helicopter. People try to get on the ladder, but Liam kicks them off. Unlike me and Gadya, he then gracefully manages to climb inside without losing his balance. He automatically pivots and starts bringing up the ladder behind him.

I see people down below jumping for it again, trying to grab it and get pulled up after us. But we can't let them do that, because we can't risk letting a spy or government worker on board.

A man finally manages to take hold of the lowest rung of the ladder before Liam can swing it out of his grasp.

The man is swearing and yelling incoherently. I grab on to the top of the ladder with Liam and we both pull at it. For a second, the man hangs there, zooming across the landscape, about twenty feet off the ground.

Then Liam yanks the ladder hard, and the man gets startled. He loses his grip and plummets down to the ground below.

“Let's go,” Cass says to the pilot. I can't see his face. He's wearing a helmet with a visor. He nods and we begin flying away.

Out the open door I can see the throngs of people below still watching us. The man who fell off the ladder is already back on his feet, shaking his hands at us and cursing.

Soon we are moving away from the road and over the trees, headed toward the heart of the battleground.

C
ASS AND
I
HUG
as the helicopter keeps moving. She pulls back from me and looks at all of us. “You guys are in better shape than I expected.”

“Thanks,” I tell her.

“How'd you make it back to the UNA?” Gadya asks.

“Second wave,” Cass tells her. “You guys were the first wave. I passed the test on my second try and got flown out here yesterday, two weeks after you guys. My arm is feeling better with every day that goes by. There's going to be a third and fourth wave too. The travelers are all coming over here to help keep order. They're going to use their skills to rebuild the country and make sure the citizens don't get out of control.”

“So the helicopter wasn't affected by the EMP?” Liam asks.

“The rebels in the UNA and the scientists managed to protect some technology from the pulse. The government didn't. That means we now have the upper hand.”

Out the window, the ground is rushing past. The helicopter tilts sideways. I grab on to a metal railing near the door. Liam puts his arm around me.

“Rika's dead,” I tell Cass.

She looks surprised. “I thought maybe she'd be okay,” Cass says. Her eyes look sad. “Alun is dead too.”

“Alun?” I ask, startled. “Are you sure?”

She nods somberly.

I feel sick to my stomach.

“They never should have sent Alun back here,” Liam says. “He was missing an eye. That means he has no depth perception. It wasn't safe for him to fight anyone.”

“He wanted to come. We couldn't stop him.” Cass pauses. “I wish I could have. But he passed the test too. I don't know how.”

“What about Emma?” I ask Cass, suddenly worried about her too.

“She's fine. Still back on Island Alpha.”

All of us are silent for a moment. The noise of the helicopter is overwhelming.