Blood Zero Sky (22 page)

Who would have imagined, as I step into the world of everything forbidden by the Company church that I would find God there waiting for me? Not the God of old, dusty books or tired, threadbare admonishments, but the living God, the one that dwells in adrenaline and breath, in the present, inside me, not in some far-off cloud city but in the electric blue of the sky hanging above.

I will go. And I will set Clair free.

Though trembling, I am calm. There’s no doubt I will fight like hell. I do not fear that I will crack under the pressure of gunfire. For the first time in my life, I do not even fear death, perhaps because it no longer stalks in the shadows but stands clearly before me, expectant, inexorable.

Half a mile later, a small guardhouse comes into view. McCann murmurs a few orders—which I hardly hear, as wrapped up in my thoughts as I am—and I am shuffled to the backseat. One of the men back there, a strapping fellow with big, brown doe’s eyes, whispers an apology as he squeezes the shackles tight against my wrists and takes my gun from my hand. I do not grimace or utter any response. I simply wait for what comes.

In front of us, Ethan’s vehicle halts before the guard gate. He leans out, says a few sharp words and gestures toward the prison impatiently. The guard, who even from here looks very young, very slow-witted, and utterly confused, gives a conciliatory shrug and speaks into his IC, presumably calling some higher-up inside the prison. Finally, after a few tense moments, the gate swings open and we roll through, following Ethan’s lead.

We pass down a long, asphalt driveway, on either side of which an expanse of parched lawn stretches almost to the horizon. Soon, we reach another checkpoint. This one consists of a steel gate set between two concrete guard towers that rise from the bare plain like a couple of gigantic fangs. From each of the guard towers, a wall of razor wire makes a wide arc around the perimeter of the prison, which itself is an unremarkable-looking edifice of water-stained concrete and scant, black windows.

We are stopped at this gate, too, and as I glance over at McCann, I see sweat beading up on his brow. Ethan explains something to another guard, and after another brief delay, this gate, too, opens. As we roll past the guardhouse, I hear the computer inside reciting a list of names:
Nancy Hernandez, squadmember third class, John Bell, squad captain, Will Pence squad member fourth class.

As they scan us, my fingers snake into my pocket and touch the tiny encoder chip there, just like the one Ethan and I used to fool the cross-reader at the work camp. The implant ID system is supposed to be infallible. Fortunately for us, it’s not. And I suddenly wonder how Ethan and his team were able to figure out a way around it.

“How—” I begin.

“Shut up, prisoner,” says the man who’d handcuffed me. His voice is sharp as flint, but when his brown eyes meet mine, I see they’re filled with sympathy, even apology. He points to one ear, and I understand: they could be listening.

Now we’ve entered the open square in front of the prison. Some of the rebels in the car with me exchange glances, and I can feel us collectively holding our breaths. The vehicles pull around a large, circular driveway and stop. To my right rises the citadel of the prison. Set in the wall directly before us stands what looks like a thick, steel garage door.

Before I can think, almost before we’ve completely stopped, my friendly captor leans over me, opens the door, and shoves me out onto the pavement. The breath is almost knocked out of me as I land hard on one shoulder.

“Up.”

It’s Ethan, standing above me, yanking me to my feet. At the same time, it’s not Ethan at all. The familiar charm, the humor, the quiet, good-natured power, all have drained from him. Everything about him is completely different now, his voice, his mannerisms, even his facial expressions. The transformation is creepy, even scary. He doesn’t look at me once I’m on my feet, but grabs my shoulder and pushes me along ahead of him so hard I almost fall over again. I wonder, with a sense of rising dread, if I’ve been betrayed. If, in fact, the rebels have not elected to accept me at all, but instead have struck a deal with the Company to turn me in. Worse yet, perhaps there was never a rebellion at all: perhaps it was all just an elaborate ruse, a test of my loyalty to the Company, which, after having failed it, necessitates the forfeiture of my freedom.

But there is no time for speculation. Already, the huge door before us has risen and three men walk out to greet us, moving almost as quickly as we are. Each wears the familiar HR squad uniform complete with the white star on the cap, but atop these stars is stitched the insignia of a black padlock, the mark of the prison division.

The squad member in the middle, obviously the commander, has a thickly muscled neck, popping with veins, and small, dark eyes. “What is this?” he says as he approaches us. “We haven’t gotten any communication whatsoever about a prisoner coming in today.”

“It’s an anarchist informant,” Ethan says, in a voice unlike his own. “We caught this one, and she pointed the way to the nest where the rest of ’em are hiding. Blackwell ordered us not to talk about it over the airwaves or the net—those damned anarchists have big ears. Blackwell doesn’t want to tip them off.”

The prison commander is sucking on his upper lip. “So what am I supposed to do with this one? I don’t have a cell arranged, I don’t have a prisoner number. . . . ”

“I don’t care what you do with her, but do it fast. We’re expecting a nasty fight when we catch those damned unprofitables, and we’ll be needing every gun we can get. I’m under orders to haul tail back down there as soon as the prisoner is dropped off. And if you can spare anybody, they’re to come with me. Send ’em to the garage in the west quadrant. We’ll pull around and they can fall in behind us.”

The commander is shaking his head. “I didn’t hear a word about any of this. . . . ”

My heart is sinking. It’s not going to work; he’s not buying it.

“Look,” Ethan says. “I don’t have time to hold your hand here. You don’t want to spare any of your men, fine. Explain it to Blackwell when you see him. Just take this prisoner off my hands so I can get back where the action is.”

“I’m just gonna call headquarters and confirm all this,” says the commander. His nostrils are flared, like a bloodhound trying to sniff out the truth.

I’m shaking with tension. This isn’t going to work. . . .

Ethan doesn’t seem worried at all. “Do whatever you want,” he says with a dismissive shrug.

Now the commander steps over to me, takes my jaw in his hands and raises my chin up, studying me.

“It’s an anarchist, alright,” he says, his sour breath reeking against my face. “Cut out its cross and everything. A woman, too. I thought she was a man when you were bringing her up. We’ll have fun with this one.”

“Great,” says Ethan. “Well, I’m going to be getting out of here. . . . ”

The commander nods, still eyeing me. I stare at the ground, refusing to meet his gaze, playing the role of the prisoner, afraid to let him see the gleeful foreknowledge of vengeance seething inside me.

“Take her in and strip her down,” the commander says to one of his men. “Have Baz get her in oranges and assign her a cell.”

“Alright,” says Ethan, affecting impatience. “She’s your prisoner now. I’m outta here—right after I use your john. Where is it?”

“This way,” says the commander. “I’ll show you.”

And we all walk toward the big, steel door.

My heart beats like a struggling captive in my chest as we step inside. Behind us, the door closes with a low
bang
of terrifying finality.

Here it comes,
I think to myself,
this is where the revolution begins.

~~~

Our footsteps echo from the polished concrete of the walls, the ceiling, the floor. One squad member behind me pokes my ass with the butt of his rifle and another one stifles a laugh. Lights hanging above, bare bulbs housed in plain, steel shades, cast strange shadows as we pass by—one, two, three, four of them.

Then a word, slowly and clearly spoken, breaks the monotony of footfalls. “Sigma,” Ethan says, and I see his hand fall to his gun an instant before the lights above click out. In the blackness, the guards around me are too startled even to make a sound.

I hear the commander in front of me mutter in exasperation, “Okay, what’s—”

And an ear-splitting report cuts his voice down to nothing. Two more muzzle-flares, two more
cracks
; I feel the heat of the shots as they speed past me, and I know the guards on either side of me are dead, though I can’t see them fall.

I feel Ethan’s hands on my wrists, hear the tiny
clok
as he unlocks my cuffs, feel the grip of the ceramic pistol as he presses it into my palm.

“Put these on,” Ethan hands me something else—some sort of glasses. I put them on and instantly the darkness around me burns with strange, iridescent shapes. I see Ethan in front of me, his features all intact but somehow without detail. On his face, he wears the strange sunglasses that had been on his head earlier.

“Fire at any movement,” he says, “and stay close.”

He leads me back the way we came, perhaps twenty yards. On my left, I make out a door I hadn’t noticed coming in.

Voices behind it:
“You think it’s a drill? Where’s the back-up power?”

Ethan knocks, and as the door swings open he steps through, gun barrel already flashing. Three squadmen fall before I’m even through the doorway. The target I see first is a small-looking man who is either trying to cower behind a desk or looking for a gun in a drawer. It takes me three shots, but he falls, howling like a wild animal.

Only one of the squadmen in the room gets a shot off, firing at Ethan’s head and striking the steel door behind him with a deep metallic
clung
. Ethan hits him in the throat, and even with my strange, truncated vision I can see the blood erupt from his neck. Ethan shoots two more guards and I get one, clipping him in the shoulder, the shot spinning him around so he drops his gun. Ethan steps up to him and shoots him once in the face, finishing him off, and I thank God I am spared the details and can only see the shape as his head distorts in the darkness. I know that I should be scared—or sad, perhaps—but the adrenaline makes any emotion impossible. All I feel is an overpowering, exhilarating drive to survive.

Now, back to the main hall. We enter three more rooms in the same way; one is empty and the other holds a few squadmen that we quickly dispatch. I replace my clip. This time, before we step back into the main hall, we can hear squadmen amassing there, their voices hardened and brittle with forced bravado. Taking cover in the doorway, Ethan pushes me to one knee and presses me to the doorjamb as he takes position standing.

We start shooting.

Maybe six guys in the hallway die before anyone can even return fire. Those who do resist look for us desperately, their flashlight beams raking the dark, their guns firing blindly, but the shots ricochet uselessly off the door frame behind which we hide, and in a few moments, most of our assailants are cut down.

Some of the survivors drop to the ground and try crawling away. Others dash for cover, diving into one of the many doorways off the main hall.

“Watch our back,” Ethan says. “I think there’s another entrance to this room.”

Sure enough, just as I turn I see a door behind us opening up. Tracer rounds rake the wall off to my left, and I take cover behind a desk, firing as I go. I must’ve hit somebody, because the machine-gun fire ceases for a minute and I hear soft, guttural muttering from across the room. Peeking over the desk, I see one squad member stooping, attending to his companion. Still, he’s too well concealed behind the doorway for me to have a clear shot. I look around the room for the advantage, and spy an alcove inset in the wall to my left. Concealed by several filing cabinets, I crawl over and stop, leaning against the wall. I poke my head over the cabinets, half expecting to have it blown off. From my new position, I see my enemy clearly. He fires a few useless shots at the desk I was crouched behind a moment ago, then turns back to his friend.

I smile cruelly and level my ceramic, feeling the tension of the trigger against my finger. But I hesitate. I drop to my knees again. Don’t know how many shots are left. Better change the clip. I rise again, looking over the filing cabinets at my unsuspecting adversary and open fire. Of the five shots I unleash, at least one finds him, for he falls back, dead.

My heartbeat pounds in my ears.

“May,” hisses Ethan from across the room.

“Here,” I say.

“You alright?”

“Fine.”

“Then come here.”

Ethan is leaning just slightly out of the doorway, angling for a better view of the main hall. “Look,” he says, trading places with me. I lean out into the wide passage, and stop breathing. Something’s coming. My first thoughts are absurd: that it’s a huge, many-legged monster stalking us, or that the entire hallway has come to life and is boiling with movement, folding in on itself, collapsing toward us. Of course these ideas are foolish. It’s just difficult to differentiate shapes with the night-vision glasses on. What looks like one massive form approaching must be a mass of men—easily a hundred—and from what I can see, they seem to be concealed behind giant shields.

“Riot gear,” says Ethan into my ear.

As the men draw rapidly closer, small groups of them break off, firing into side corridors and storming the rooms adjoining the main passage. I suddenly feel ill. There are too many of them. No way we can hold them off.

“What do you think?” Ethan whispers. “Can we take them, or should we call for help?”

I’m so incredulous at the question, I almost yell my response. “Call for help!”

Ethan laughs, and for a moment I’m gripped with the fear that he’s actually gone mad. He checks his clip, fills it, replaces it, and surprises me by leveling it not at the mass of rapidly approaching squadmen, but in the opposite direction, at the huge, steel door through which we entered the prison.