Haven (The Last Humans Book 3) (3 page)

“
N
o
,” I yell. “No, Grace, you can’t do this to me!”

Grace’s convulsions begin to subside.

I’m faced with a terrible choice. There’s no way I can carry the boy, the girl, Owen, and Grace. It’s physically impossible. I’ll have to tell the girl to walk on her own and choose between Owen and Grace.

In ancient times, rescue workers, such as firemen, probably had to make choices like this all the time. I don’t know how they managed it, because I’m paralyzed with indecision. I know inaction will result in an even worse outcome, but I can’t make myself move.

This is what those moral dilemmas in the Test must’ve felt like.

“Phoe,” I shout in desperation. “I really need your help.”

Nanoseconds pass at the speed of thought, and I make a decision. Only I’m afraid my bias, rather than logic, is influencing my choice. Would logic even help in this situation?

The little girl stops crying and looks over my shoulder.

“Dude,” Liam says, startling me. His voice is the most welcome sound I’ve ever heard. “Why are you just standing there?”

I don’t have time to berate him for putting himself in danger again, so I say to the little girl, “Can you walk?”

She looks at me like I’m a creature from her worst nightmare but nods, almost imperceptibly.

I take that as a yes, and say to Liam, “Hold her hand. If she has trouble walking, put her over your shoulder like I did with the boy. Now grab Grace by her shoulders. Hurry.”

Liam grabs the girl’s hand. I expect her to cry out, but she keeps quiet. With a grunt that makes me cringe, Liam puts his arm under Grace’s armpits and starts dragging her around the corner of the last corridor.

I lead the way. If I thought my burden was heavy before, I was wrong. Owen’s full weight feels like a sack of bricks, and Jason seems to have been secretly replaced by a human-shaped ice sculpture. My back feels like it’s about to break, and my heart threatens to jump out of my ribcage with every step I take. Despite the Respirocytes, the stress is turning my breathing fast and shallow, and even my vision is blurring.

Step after step, I try to focus on anything but the enormous strain in my muscles. I think of music and art, but even that doesn’t help. The music in my head is heavy
metal, and the art that comes to mind is a piece by a famous ancient Russian painter that depicts eleven men struggling to haul a barge through a river.

“We’re almost there,” Liam wheezes from behind me. “Just a little farther.”

Hope renews my strength, and I pick up my pace, walking at a whopping speed of a step per second for the remaining length of the corridor. When I’m a few feet away from the entrance, I manage to speed up more, dragging my charges the remaining distance.

As soon as I’m outside, I kneel down, lowering Owen to the ground and carefully place Jason next to him. Then, sucking in gulps of air, I look for Grace’s CPR trainee.

Our gazes meet, and I wave at her. “Come help!”

The girl and a couple of other Youths rush over.

I jump up to go back for Liam, but at that moment, he comes out of the building.

I run over to him and help him lower Grace to the ground. As soon as she’s on her back, I crouch and prepare to perform CPR.

Under any other circumstances, putting my hand so close to Grace’s breasts and touching my mouth to hers would be awkward, but right now, it’s clinical. I finish my presses and breathe air into her lungs. All my thoughts are concentrated on helping her breathe again.

“Please, Grace,” I think desperately. “Breathe.”

As though she heard my mental plea, Grace gasps. Her long eyelashes flutter open, and she stares at me, her blue eyes bloodshot but alert.

“Owen,” she gasps out. “Did he make it?”

My pulse lurches. I’ve been so focused on saving her, I’ve all but forgotten about Owen’s equally dire circumstances.

I jump to my feet and am about to rush over to Owen when I see Grace trying to get up. Bending down, I offer her my hand, and she takes it, her palm cold and clammy in my grasp.

Together, we hurry over to the girl I left in charge of Owen. She’s frantically breathing into Owen’s mouth as Liam waits to resume the compressions.

Grace kneels down next to Owen and touches her hand to his neck as I stand, watching helplessly. A visible shudder ripples through her; then she says in a choked voice, “Move over, both of you.”

Grace proceeds to feel for pulse in Owen’s wrist, then his chest.

When she looks up, her eyes are brimming with tears.

“No,” I say numbly. “No, he can’t be…”

Grace starts performing CPR on Owen, her expression grimly determined.

“Phoe,” I scream in my mind. “Phoe, come on! He can’t be dead.”

There’s no response. In a haze, I watch Grace perform several rounds of CPR. By the time she stops and looks up, she’s shaking and tears are streaking down her cheeks.

“I think it’s too late,” she says, her lips tinged blue, but I barely hear her through the cold numbness paralyzing me in place.

Next to me, Liam stares at her wide-eyed, and the helper girl looks as if she’s about to sprint for the edge of Oasis.

In theory, facing death should be easier for me than for the others. After all, I’ve faced it repeatedly in the last few days. Yet my insides are burning up despite the cold, and the back of my throat spasms uncontrollably.

I’m brought out of my anguished daze by the realization that Grace is maniacally pacing around me, muttering something morbid. Liam is rubbing his arms, and Grace’s helper is hugging her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth.

I search for something soothing to tell them, but before I can come up with the words, Grace shakes her head violently and darts off toward the building. As she runs by, I catch her mumbling, “I have to make sure no one else dies…”

The surrounding Youths go silent, wary of Grace’s shouting and erratic behavior, and in the resulting quiet, I hear a new warning: “Habitat’s oxygen levels abnormal. Habitat’s nitrogen levels abnormal. Life support functions out of balance—”

The kids all start talking and crying at once, preventing me from hearing whatever else the ship-wide intercom system is saying. On some level, I know the message is troubling, but I’m too dumbfounded by Owen’s death and Grace’s reaction to process it fully. I can’t think about anything but the fact that she’s going back into that deadly building.

My legs are wooden as I stumble after her. “Wait, Grace.”

She either doesn’t hear me or ignores me as she disappears through the doors.

Cursing under my breath, I start to give chase, but someone grabs me in a bear hug from behind with sweaty, trembling hands.

“Don’t go in there,” Liam mutters into my ear. “You’ll die.”

“Dude, I’ll be okay,” I say, pushing him away. “More okay than her.”

“Then I’m—”

“Don’t you dare finish that thought.” I spin around to glare at him. “If you go anywhere near that stupid building, I will knock you the fuck out.”

Liam blinks at me, his face contorting as though he’s bracing against my threat.

I don’t wait for him to recover and run inside the building. Grace is nowhere in sight.

The corridors zigzag and the red light blurs my vision as I hurry from hallway to hallway, searching for Grace.

“Grace,” I scream over Phoe’s mechanical voice. “Grace, where are you?”

I enter a room and instinctively gesture to dismiss the abandoned beds. When the gesture fails, I bend to check under each bed. The room is empty. Then I enter another room and another—all empty.

Adrenaline is messing with my sense of time. I have no clue how long I’ve been searching the building, but I’m confident I’ve looked inside every room on the first floor.

I go up the nearest staircase toward the second floor. A door slams shut somewhere above me.

“Grace!” I shout and take the stairs three at a time. “Is that you?”

Albert is walking down the stairs toward me. He’s straining under the heavy weight of his burden. Over his right shoulder, he’s carrying a boy, and over his left, he has Grace.

“Let me help.” I hurry to his side.

“No,” Albert wheezes. “Get out of here.”

I step in front of him. “You can barely walk. Don’t waste oxygen arguing. Give me one of them and let’s go.”

Albert hesitates for a split second, but then practicality appears to win out. He knows it’ll take him twice as long to carry Grace and the boy outside on his own, assuming he doesn’t pass out on the way. Carefully, he gives me the boy. With a grunt, I position the kid over my shoulder. His body feels lifeless, and Grace doesn’t look much better.

“Go,” Albert rasps out.

Realizing I’m costing the man precious air, I quickly descend the stairs.

My breathing is frantic, but it’s impossible to tell whether I’m suffocating or experiencing side effects from the adrenaline.

Albert’s wheezing intensifies; he’s running out of air. I’m amazed at his stamina. Older people are usually frail, but then, for an Elderly, he’s not
that
old. Also, he must’ve gone through extensive training to become a Guard—not that the training will be of any help if he can’t breathe. He looks like he’s barely holding on.

I open the door to the first floor and hold it for Albert. He grunts gratefully as he exits, and I hurry after him.

Either I’m numb from exhaustion or I’ve developed something like a runner’s second wind, because I’m rushing through the corridors with the boy on my shoulder and I don’t feel the cold or the strain in my muscles. I don’t even hear the alarms.

When Albert’s steps falter, I prop him up with my shoulder. He leans on me, hesitantly at first, then more fully as oxygen deprivation takes its toll on him. The numbness blanketing me starts to dissipate, and one corridor later, I realize I might’ve pushed my body too far.

Every step feels like an ordeal now. If the alarms weren’t coloring the world red, I’d be seeing white spots, and even through the deafening noise, I’m pretty sure there’s a dull ringing in my ears.

Rationally, I know it’s me who crosses the last half of the corridor to the entrance, but it feels like it’s happening to someone else.

I regain my wits when I see the Youths outside—though I can’t help but notice that unlike before, the air doesn’t feel much fresher than inside the building.

Albert lays Grace on the ground, and I do the same with the boy on my shoulder, and we begin performing CPR.

I compress the boy’s chest, then breathe into his mouth at least a dozen times before I think to check for his pulse. I can’t find a heartbeat. I look over at Albert, and my hopes shatter at the expression on his face.

Albert catches my glance, wipes the moisture from his face with his white sleeve, and shakes his head.

“No.” Frantically, I resume pushing on the boy’s chest. “No, no, no.”

Albert kneels next to me, pushes me away, and checks his vitals.

“I’m sorry,” he says, lifting his head. The look on his face echoes the horror gnawing at my chest. “We did our best.”

Ignoring him, I jump up and rush over to Grace, where she’s lying still and lifeless.

Frantically, I check for her heartbeat.

There isn’t one.

Stubbornly, I begin CPR. Her lips are blue and cold as I breathe air into her, and her chest feels inanimate, like that of a doll’s. I perform round after round of CPR, losing track of time as I toil over Grace’s body.

Someone grasps my arm and pulls me away.

“That’s enough, Theo,” Liam says when I look up, ready to fight. His voice cracks as he says hoarsely, “We have to face it. Grace is dead.”

I
stare at my friend
, uncomprehending. The pain in his eyes echoes the agonizing throb in my chest. My grief, or whatever this is, is so overwhelming that I think I zone out for a moment. Over Liam’s shoulder, I see the red sky, and I stare blankly at it. Eventually, I notice white text scrolling across the Dome. Maybe it’s been there all along, but I haven’t noticed it until now. I squint at it and make out part of the messages scrolling past. Most of them are warnings. I spot the same warning about the nitrogen and oxygen being out of whack. I pushed the initial warning out of my mind, but now that I think about it, the implications are dire. It means we’re—

Sharp pain brings me out of my daze.

Blinking, I gape at Liam—who just smacked me across the cheek, like an ancient wife with a philandering husband.

“Dude, what the hell?” I rub my stinging cheek.

“You weren’t responding,” Liam says defensively. “I wanted you to snap out of it. We have to do
something
.”

I notice he’s doing his best not to look at Grace’s body or the dead boy—or Owen, for that matter.

I look around for the Guard. “Where’s Albert?”

“Who?” Liam follows my gaze in confusion.

“The Guard who came out of the building with me. Where is he? He’s not insane enough to go back in there, is he?”

“Oh, the Guard,” Liam says. “No, he doesn’t need to go back into the building. He said it’s clear.”

“So where is he then?”

“He headed that way.” Liam points toward the forest. “He didn’t say why.”

I scan the golf course in the distance. The short grass has an odd reddish-black tint thanks to the redness of the Dome, and Albert’s white spacesuit is easy to spot.

“We should follow him,” I say, a vague plan forming in my mind.

“Why?” Liam asks.

“You wanted to do
something,
” I say. “This is as good as anything, under the circumstances.”

“I guess, but I don’t see how leaving the group will help.”

“I’ll explain as we go,” I say and begin to make my way through the crowd of Youths. To myself, I mumble, “Assuming I figure out what the hell to do.”

Liam looks like a duckling following its mama as he trails after me. I can tell he’s not sure about leaving the Youths, but his trust in me—or maybe his general confusion—wins over, and he keeps following me.

When we leave the crowd behind, Liam recovers enough to take the lead, his eyes glued to Albert’s figure in the distance.

“Habitat’s oxygen levels critically low,” Phoe’s sky voice announces. “Nitrogen levels critically high. Carbon monoxide levels rising. Thermostatic modules malfunctioning.”

“What does that mean?” Liam says, stopping so suddenly that I almost walk into him.

“I think it means that what happened inside the buildings is happening outside,” I say, trying to ignore the expanding knot of fear in my throat. “It means Oasis’s air won’t be breathable soon, and we’ll all suffocate.”

“But how can that be?” The tendons in Liam’s neck are standing out. “Is it the red light? Is it messing with the plants’ oxygen production?”

“Let’s walk and talk,” I say. Stepping around him, I explain, “The plants never produced the bulk of the oxygen. There are machines that do that.”

Liam follows me, but his gait is uncertain, and his breathing is labored again. “Everyone knows it’s the plants that produce—”

“Right.” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Just like everyone knows that the sky is never red.” I look up at the screen-like Dome. “Just like everyone knows we’re on Earth, in a paradise, and nothing can go wrong.”

Liam gives me a confused look and says, “Okay, let’s say machines are at work. Why is it getting harder to breathe so quickly?”

“I don’t know for sure.” For the millionth time, I hope Phoe will chime in with some scientific explanation, but she remains silent. “It might be the part about the nitrogen,” I fib, suppressing a shiver from the chill seeping into my skin. “I read that too much nitrogen in the air can suffocate you, and it might also take oxygen out of the air. If not nitrogen, then maybe the machines are messing up in some other way. It’s not hard to run out of oxygen if you stop or slow down its production, since all of us are using it up by breathing. It’s not like air can come from outside the Dome…”

“What about thermostatic what’s-it-called?” Liam says after catching his breath for a few steps. “What was that about?”

“Haven’t you noticed how cold it is?” I say, rubbing my hands up and down my bare arms.

Liam looks at the gooseflesh on his own arms. “I thought it was from the lack of clothes and this being the middle of the night. At least I assume it’s the middle of the night. Do you actually have any idea what time it is?”

“No, I don’t,” I say. The air coming out of my mouth looks like smoke, or more accurately, vapor. This is how the ancients’ breath looked when people walked around during winter. I’ve never seen it in real life.

Liam jams his hands into his armpits. “So what’s going to happen to us? What’s going to happen to everyone?”

“I’m not sure.” I try to keep my teeth from chattering.

“Then where are we going? What’s the point of following the Guard?”

As though he was waiting for Liam to ask that question, Albert disappears into the forest.

I pick up my pace. “If we run, we’ll stay warm,” I explain when Liam glances at me. “Plus, the forest might have more oxygen with all those trees.”

Without complaining that I didn’t answer his question, Liam runs after me. By the time we reach the tree line, his breathing starts to sound like a broken steam engine.

The forest looks creepily black under the red light, reminding me of an evil, magical forest from a fairytale. I expect Liam to say something about it, but he doesn’t—not a good sign.

A mile or so into the woods, Liam stops, and I can tell he’s about to ask me why we’re following Albert and where we’re going. To save him oxygen, I say, “The Guard isn’t really our destination. He might know something, but the place we really need to reach is the Adult section.
They
might have some answers.”

Liam takes a couple of heavy breaths and says, “But how are we supposed to get through the Barrier?”

“Let’s keep moving,” I say and grab his ice-cold arm. “I’m hoping if we can catch up with the Guard, he’ll get you through.”

I don’t tell Liam that even if we don’t catch up with Albert, there’s a good chance that the Barrier will let him through because he’s with
me
. I can access any area in Oasis thanks to Phoe’s Birth Day hack that fooled Oasis’s systems into thinking I’m an Elderly.

The smell of the pine forest, or perhaps the oxygen it produces, reinvigorates me, but the same can’t be said for Liam. His run quickly diminishes to a jog, then a walk. By the time we reach the forest’s edge, he’s barely trudging along.

When we exit the forest, I’m not surprised to find the shimmering Barrier missing. Given that the Barrier is an Augmented Reality artifact and the Screens, trees, and other AU-generated things are gone, it stands to reason—if by reason, one means complete chaos—that the Barrier would also be gone. Plus, since Liam easily passed the threshold where fear should’ve gripped him, I half-expected
something
to be wrong with the Barrier.

Liam drags himself to the middle of the clearing. When he sees the forest on the Adult side, he gives me a despairing look.

“Another forest,” I say. “Hey, that means more oxygen, right?”

Liam doesn’t say anything. His whole body slumps, and he starts walking with the same enthusiasm as a condemned man going to the gallows.

“Lean on me,” I say and walk up to Liam.

Liam doesn’t argue and meekly puts his right arm over my shoulders. His added weight slows me down, but I’m grateful for his body heat. I just wish we could cover the ground faster.

When we reach the Adult section of the forest, I pick up a stick for each of us to lean on. Our improvised canes help for a bit, but when we reach the edge of a small clearing, Liam drops the stick and leans on a gigantic pine, gasping desperately.

I let go of him and step back, not knowing what to do. Then it comes to me.

“I’ll walk ahead and find a Disk,” I say, half to myself and half to Liam. “The Adults have these flying devices. You can sit on one and—”

“Please,” Liam wheezes. His face has a bluish-purple tint under the red light of the dome. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone.”

“Of course,” I say instantly. Those words must’ve cost my friend a lot of oxygen.

He nods and inhales deeply, then again and again. With every breath, his eyes get wider, and his face turns a darker shade of purple.

My pulse skyrockets as I watch Liam grab at his throat the way he did inside the Dorm.
No, please no.
Frantically, I reach for him, but it’s too late.

My friend slides down the enormous tree trunk, falling to his knees.

His eyes and the veins on his forehead are bulging as he continues to clutch at his throat. He wheezes painfully several times, and then his breathing stops.

“Liam!” I grab his arm just as he collapses to the ground.