Underground (16 page)

‘That's him,' I said firmly. ‘That's not you.'

‘Not yet,' said Jordan.

I reached across to – to what? Hug her? But there was a smash of metal on concrete from across the room and we both looked up.

‘What the crap is this?'

‘Think he might be awake,' said Jordan, getting to her feet.

Peter's eyes appeared behind the window, widening as we approached. ‘Hey! Get me out!'

‘Shh!' said Jordan, meeting him at the door. ‘Calm down. It's okay.' She started lifting the first metal barricade out of its brackets. Slowly, like she didn't want Peter to know what she was doing.

‘What's going on?' Peter demanded.

‘Hang on,' I said, bending down to get the next barricade. ‘We're coming in.'

‘Screw that,' said Peter. ‘I'm coming
out.'

‘You can't,' said Jordan, and I was glad it was her saying it, and not me. ‘You need to – just hang on a sec, okay? We'll explain when we get inside.'

I lifted the last metal bar from across the door. Jordan pulled it open just enough to slip through. I squeezed in after her, fingers brushing across a lump in my pocket. The auto-injector pen I'd taken from the lab, just in case.

The room inside might almost have passed for a bedroom, if not for the misshapen walls. We'd dragged in one of the dozen unused beds from the back of Soren's room, as well as a desk and a spare laptop that Kara had only given us after we'd threatened to change our minds about agreeing to keep Peter in here. Jordan had also scraped together a stack of old books and magazines on a little bookcase, and stolen the beanbag from the living area.

Still, there was no shaking the prison-cell vibe as we shut the door behind us.

‘Are you okay?' asked Peter, reaching out to touch Jordan. ‘What's going on? How come I'm locked up if you're –?'

‘Come and sit,' said Jordan, pulling free and moving across to the bed.

Peter didn't need telling twice. There was more than enough room, but he sat down right next to her, leg pressing against hers, like he was
trying
to be creepy.

The metal chair – the one I'd been tied to, back when this was
my
prison – was lying on its side, kicked halfway across the room. I brought it over and sat opposite Peter and Jordan, the memory of the room still too close for comfort. I glanced at the arm of the chair and rubbed a bit of dried blood away with my thumb.

‘Where are Kara and Soren?' Peter asked.

‘They're back in the lab,' said Jordan, shuffling away from him, but trying to make it subtle.

‘What, strapped to the beds?'

My fingers traced back over the auto-injector.
Here
it comes …

‘No …' said Jordan slowly. ‘They're – They're trying to get the surveillance room up and running again.'

‘My dad's keeping an eye on them,' I added quickly.

Peter ignored me, attention still fixed on Jordan. ‘Then what the
crap
am I doing in here?'

‘Peter, this isn't –' Jordan faltered, looking to me for support.

But what was I supposed to say that wasn't going to get me smashed in the face?

‘It was Kara's decision,' I said. ‘After you attacked her, and after what happened up on the surface …'

‘
Kara's
decision?' said Peter angrily. ‘Why is freaking
Kara
deciding
anything?'

‘She's not. It's not like that.'

‘What about Shackleton? Is he on the panel too? I mean, seeing as we're deciding things by bloody consensus now.'

Jordan squirmed uncomfortably. ‘Peter …'

‘No, screw this.' Peter stood up.

My hand shot down to my pocket again.

Jordan caught the back of Peter's shirt. ‘Stop.'

‘Why?'

‘What do you think Kara and Soren are going to do if you go out there?'

‘They're going to get out of my freaking way,' said Peter, pulling away from her.

I stood up, getting between him and the door, fingers curling around the auto-injector.

Peter snarled. ‘Get out of it, mate.'

‘Wait,' I said, slowly drawing the pen out of my pocket. ‘Please, just stop –'

Peter's hand shot to my arm. He dragged it up into the air, digging his fingers in.

‘Bastard,' he growled, surging forward and punching me in the gut. I grunted, dropped the pen and tried to back off, but he still had my other hand.

Peter slammed into me with his shoulder, shoving me toward the wall. I stumbled, feet dragging, hurtling backwards toward the mishmash of concrete and rust and nails.

‘STOP!' Jordan screamed. ‘STOP IT!'

Peter pulled up, centimetres from driving me into a rusty pipe. He let go of me and whirled around.

‘This is
exactly
why you're in here!' said Jordan. ‘Look at you! You're
sick.

' ‘No!' said Peter, holding up his hands. ‘No, I'm not, I was only –'

‘What about those guards back at your house? How can we –?' Jordan's voice caught in her throat. ‘We don't even know if they're alive!'

‘
You're
alive,' said Peter, walking back to her.

I edged sideways, trying to stay out of his peripheral vision long enough to retrieve the pen.

‘That's not the point!' said Jordan. ‘You can't just –'

‘I had to,' he whispered, moving to put his arms around her. ‘For you. I want us to be –'

She shuddered, twisting away, slipping out under his arm.

‘No, wait!' said Peter, face falling.

I bent down and grabbed the auto-injector.

Jordan kept walking, straight out the door.

Peter started after her and I straightened up, ready to fend off another attack. He stopped, just out of arm's reach, seeing the pen in my hand.

He sighed heavily.

When he looked up again, there were tears running down his face.

Peter turned away, collapsing into the beanbag, head in his hands.

I shoved the pen back into my pocket and walked out of the room.

Chapter 21

T
HURSDAY
, J
ULY
2
42
DAYS

‘Still nothing?' said Kara, circling the table of laptops in the surveillance room.

‘I'm trying,' said Soren defensively. He'd been working all yesterday afternoon and most of today to access the new security system, but still the only image we had was from their own camera, up above the tunnel entrance.

Right now, that was the only one I cared about.

Jordan was up on the surface. She'd left about an hour ago to see if Peter's mum had dropped us off a newspaper or anything. I'd made her
promise
to stay away from town, but that didn't keep my brain from swimming with images of Calvin gunning her down on the front lawn of her house.

I hadn't spoken to Peter again since yesterday. Jordan had taken him some dinner last night, but he'd just thrown it back out through the hole in the door. She'd tried again at breakfast and come back pretending not to cry.

That was when she'd decided to take the trip outside.

Something moved across the screen. I was halfway out of my seat before I realised it was only a bird. I sank back down and kept watching.

Soren's fingers hammered away at a keyboard on the other side of the desk. Kara leant in behind him, resting her hands on the back of his chair. He twitched his head around. ‘Go away.'

Kara backed off and left him to it.

‘Still not back yet?' asked Dad, coming in from the other room.

‘No,' I sighed, spinning around on the chair. ‘I don't get what's taking – Whoa.'

Dad's raggedy Crazy Bill beard had disappeared. His hair was clean and combed, and he'd changed into some of Soren's spare clothes.

‘What's wrong?' he asked, pulling up a chair next to me.

‘Nothing,' I said. ‘You just look like you again.'

Dad glanced at the screen.

‘So,' he said, completely failing to sound offhand, ‘this Montag guy …'

Something tightened in my chest. But I knew I couldn't avoid this conversation forever. ‘Robert Montag. He's our doctor.
Their
doctor. The head of Phoenix Medical.'

Dad gave a slow nod. ‘And he and Mum are …?'

‘More than just good friends. Yeah.'

Another nod, still determinedly casual. ‘What's he like?'

‘What's he like?'
I said. ‘Dad, he's one of them! He helped build this place.'

Dad sat up in his chair, and this time I was sure he was going to lose it. But he just took a deep breath, rested his elbows back on the desk, and said, ‘I assume Mum doesn't know about that part.'

‘Only because she's too bloody stupid to hear it,' I muttered, chest twisting even tighter.

‘But you've tried,' said Dad. He nodded wearily. ‘She never was much good at hearing news she didn't like.'

‘Mmm,' I said, adjusting the angle of the laptop screen, ready to drop this conversation.

Still no movement outside.

Dad leant in closer, out of earshot of Soren. ‘What about you and Jordan?'

‘That's not even –' I said, trying to ignore the conspiratorial grin on his face. ‘It's the end of the world, Dad. As if I have time for –'

I jumped up, sending the chair rolling away across the floor. Jordan had just walked onto the screen, glancing around at the bush, a rolled-up newspaper clutched in her right hand.

I leapt across to the panel on the wall and bashed the button to open the entrance.

‘She's in,' said Dad, a few seconds later, still watching the screen.

I hit the button again and raced up the hall to meet her. ‘Are you okay?' I asked, as soon as she came through the door. ‘What took so –?'

‘I know why they're taking Mum and Georgia.' She unrolled the newspaper, breathing hard, and turned to an article a few pages in.

The photos were the first clue that something was up. Two more stock portraits that had clearly been taken well before the article was written. They were of Mrs Lewis, the school librarian, and Amy, the insanely fast girl we'd last seen tearing into the darkness, away from Calvin and his men. The story underneath was just a couple of paragraphs reporting that Mrs Lewis and Amy were currently on their way to New Zealand for a literature summit.

I handed back the paper. ‘They got her.'

‘Yeah,' said Jordan. ‘Her and Jeremy.'

I nodded. No way was that a coincidence.

‘Shackleton's weeding us out,' said Jordan, lowering her voice so Kara and Soren wouldn't hear. ‘All of the – whatever we are. Everyone who's changing. They're getting rid of us. And Mum and Georgia are next.'

F
RIDAY
, J
ULY
3
41
DAYS

‘Okay, here,' said Jordan, flipping around the notepad she'd been scribbling on. ‘They were like this.'

We were sitting on one of the couches in the living area, getting some space from Kara and Soren's bickering in the surveillance room. Dad had gone down to deliver Peter's dinner, along with a couple more old magazines we'd dug up.

I looked at the notepad. Jordan had drawn up a map of the town, with a bunch of red Xs marked out all across the north end. Cameras. Turned out
that
was what she'd been doing up there all that time yesterday: scouting around for a safe way into her house.

But, of course, there wasn't one.

‘Doesn't look good,' I said, pointing at the page. ‘Come in from this side and you get picked up by that one. Go in the front and you get caught here, and probably here too.'

‘What about the back fence?' said Jordan halfheartedly. ‘If we could get in from behind …'

‘How? You'd have to get there first, and there'll be just as many cameras around the other side that we don't even know about yet.'

Jordan sighed.

‘Yeah,' she said, closing up the notepad and dropping it onto the floor. ‘You're right. We'll just have to get in as quick as we can, and hope –'

I opened my mouth, but she held up a hand to stop me. ‘No, Luke – You don't want to come? Fine. But I'm not letting them take my family. I don't care if –'

‘Jordan,' I said, feeling that familiar anxiety, ‘I'll come. You know I will. If you decide to go up there, then we're going up together. But can we at least figure out if – I mean, do we actually have a
chance
here?'

Jordan stood up, staring at the ceiling.

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘That's not the point.'

‘Yes it is!' I said, getting up after her. ‘That's
exactly
the point, because if all we're going to do up there is die heroically, then –'

‘Then at least we
tried!'
said Jordan, voice cracking. ‘At least we didn't just sit around and
wait
for it to happen! I have to. I have to do this. I can't just …' She stepped forward and sort of crumpled into me, head on my shoulder, crying. I put my arms around her back and felt it jolt in time with her breathing. Jordan sniffed, tears soaking through my shirt.