The World Forgot (14 page)

“You're here to res—” I start, before Bok Choy clamps a hand over my mouth.

“Shh!” he shout-whispers. “We don't have much time. There's about to be a guard shift in five minutes, and I think we might have a chance of getting you all out of here.”

“Why are you doing this?” I ask. If I sound suspicious, it's because I totally am. (Although, to be honest, I cannot fathom what could be in it for Marsden to attempt to trick us like this. He might be a megalomaniacal madman, but mind-dickery just for the sake of it doesn't seem like his style.)

“I don't know a lot,” Bok Choy says. “I mean, I'm learning things, but it's all very fast and confusing. I know I haven't . . . been here very long. I know there are things I can't understand yet . . . but there are things I just know. No, that's not the right word. Things I . . .
feel
.”

Bok Choy takes the bag from his shoulder and hands it to me. I open it and find a spiffy zip-front sheath jacket. I slip the jacket on right away, immediately appreciating the warmth of the fabric. I hadn't realized how cold I'd been in here.

“It fits perfectly,” I marvel, stretching out my arms. “How did you—”

“I've got an eye for sizes,” Bok Choy replies with a shrug.

“But”—I switch over to a slightly more important topic of conversation—“aren't you going to get in a lot of trouble for this? Like, the kind of trouble that gets you dead?”

Bok Choy examines the floor as he speaks. “The doctor . . . ,” he begins. “He tells us things. How he says things are. I've listened to him, and I've believed him, because, I don't know, I just have? Like there was no reason not to. I had no choice. But the things he's done here, the things he's doing. The things I've helped him with. None of it seems right. But you . . .” And that's when he looks up at me. “You sang to me. You're the only one who's ever done that. You sang to me when I was scared, and showed me kindness. Yours is the only kindness I have ever known.”

Who says show tunes can't unite warring nations?

Without really thinking what I'm doing, I reach out and touch Bok Choy's cheek. It's a very motherly gesture, I realize.

Hard to believe you don't have much time left,
I think, remembering what Marsden told me about Bok Choy's “viability.” But I say nothing. I have a strong suspicion that the poor kid doesn't know.

“I think I figured out what my daughter sees in you,” I tell him instead.

Bok Choy cocks his head to the side like a confused puppy. “Huh?”

“Nothing. We should go. Get the others.”

Bok Choy nods. “Here.” He hands me a pair of nifty Jin'Kai manacles. “This way.”

We come out into the hall and make our way quickly down the corridor. I keep my hands crossed in front of me, the cuffs loosely placed around my wrists so that to a passing baddie it'll look like I'm a prisoner being transported. Bok Choy keeps a grip on my arm. When we turn a corner, we both freeze for a split second, hearing footsteps. But whoever the footsteps belong to is traveling away from us, so we continue on.

There are five cells lining the left wall, three of them with a solid red light above the doorway. Doors I've passed at least a dozen times now, wondering if any of my friends might be trapped inside. Sure enough, Bok Choy taps the wall console, and all three cell doors hiss and slide open, their red lights flashing blue. Marnie pops out of the first cell, and if she's surprised to see us, she does a good job of hiding it. I guess in her world there's rarely any time for explanations during life-and-death situations.

“What's going on? How did you get out?” Cole says as he sticks his head out of the far cell and sees us.

The center cell is quiet. No movement. I feel a growing lump of ice form in the pit of my stomach.

“Ducky?” I call. No answer.

I rush past Marnie and ignore Cole as he steps into the hallway, still confused by his sudden emancipation. I clamor down the two steps into the middle cell, expecting the worst. Or worse.

I find Ducky lying stretched out on his side on the hard metal bed slab jutting out of the far wall. He's resting his head in one hand, with the other draped over his hip. He's looking right at me, and the smirk on his face is tight and twitchy, like he's trying with all his might not to burst into a great big moony smile.

“Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?” he asks, his voice one step away from a giggle.

I could pop him in the mouth, but he's just so happy at the moment that I don't have the heart.

“Ye wretched scamp!” Marnie chastises as she brushes past me into the cell. Ducky rises slowly from the bed, and I can tell he's in pain. They must have done a number on him at some point—doing what, I'd rather not know.

“You okay?” I ask.

Ducky waves me off like he gets tortured by space invaders all the time. “I'm just glad it was you this time,” he replies. “The last ten times, the guards didn't think it was funny.”

I move to Ducky's side opposite from Marnie, and we help lift him gingerly to his feet. All my friends are alive. I will count myself lucky.

“I don't reckon I'll ever understand yer particular brand of humor,” Marnie says, looking at the two of us as we step out into the hallway.

“After the world doesn't end, I've got about a hundred flat pics for you to watch,” Ducky tells her.

“Elvie, what's the plan?” Cole asks as he takes my place at Ducky's side, shouldering the brunt of the weight. Cole examines my handcuffs, and then Bok Choy.

“Who's this?” he asks.

“Cole, it's Bok Choy. Little naked boy from the
Echidna
?”

“Holy shit,” Cole whistles. “You don't still bite, do you?”

“I, uh, no? Not recently,” Bok Choy stammers.

“Can we trust him?” Cole asks me.

“We can trust him. We need to get out of here, see if we can find the ship. Hopefully it's where we left—”

“Halt right there!” a voice shouts at us from down the hallway. Three Jin'Kai guards are running toward us, weapons drawn. “What's the meaning of this?”

“Uh, prisoner transfer,” Bok Choy says, reaching to his belt. “I have the order right here.”

“Stay that hand, freak,” the lead guard says, sticking his weapon right in Bok Choy's face. So I guess the prejudice against Marsden's pet projects extends even to his own loyal men. I can see why he's reluctant to have his superiors see his work before he has acquired the desired results. Bok Choy reluctantly moves his hand away from the blaster at his hip. The guard looks over his shoulder to the other guards. “Call it in. Let's see what Marsden—”

Before the dude can finish, Bok Choy has knocked the gun out of his hand and fallen on him. Cole springs into action immediately, ditching Ducky and leaping at one of the other guards. You can just tell that all this imprisonment has left Cole aching for a good fight, because I don't think he's ever whaled on anybody so enthusiastically. The third Jin'Kai turns his gun on Ducky, who immediately crumples to the floor—which seems to confuse the hell out of the guard. He looks up at Marnie for a split second in his confusion, giving Ducky the opening I
guess
he was looking for. In a move way more bold and coordinated than I ever would've expected of him, Ducky jumps across the floor and tries to leg-tackle his would-be attacker. The guard is thrown off balance for a brief second, and in that time Marnie does a nifty jump-kick move, popping his gun out of his grip and onto the floor. The guard counters with a backhand slap that sends Marnie crashing into the wall, dazed. Then he pulls one leg free from Ducky and kicks him hard in the stomach, eliciting a pitiful yelp.

Cue Elvie's turn to play the hero.

I lean down to reach for one of the fallen weapons—only to realize that the cuffs that I had loosely draped over my wrists have
actually locked into place
, the coiled metal bands giving me less than fifteen centimeters of leeway. My momentary hesitation gives the guard a chance to grab me by the arm and toss me hard at the wall. I land on Marnie—lucky for me but not for her. If she wasn't out cold before, she certainly is now. I decide to pull a classic Ducky and feign my own unconsciousness, which seems to work. Through the slits of my eyelids I see the guard swivel in place, trying to remove Ducky from his ankle.

That's when I spring up, jumping as high as I can and wrapping my manacled hands around the dude's throat. With all my might I pull back, pressing the bands deep into his neck. He jerks back, instinctively reaching for the cuffs in an attempt to pry them away. I press my knee hard into his back, using the leverage to really go for gold. The guard's gagging, unable to get any air, and his whole head goes red, the veins in his forehead throbbing.

It dawns on me in that moment that I am actively strangling another person, with the closest thing to my bare hands that I could get without leaving fingerprints on his throat. And I falter—just enough for the guard to get his fingers underneath the bands. Rather than thanking me for my momentary flash of humanity/mercy/what have you, once the Jin'Kai has a solid grip on the cuffs, he lifts them (and me) up, flipping me over his head and down hard onto my back.

Now I'm the one with the wind knocked out of me. Free from Ducky's grasp, the guard dashes to pick up his gun. But as his hand brushes across the weapon, he is tackled from behind by Bok Choy. Unfortunately for our plucky little gang, the guard is low to the ground, and Bok Choy comes in too fast. The guard easily uses Bok Choy's momentum to slide past him, scooping up the weapon and spinning around to line up a shot.

The crackle of energy sings through the air, and sends the guard flailing from the wound in his chest. I look up from my spot on the floor to see Bok Choy's savior—expecting it to be Cole, or Marnie, or perhaps Ducky (hey, anything is possible). Instead I see everyone in our little melee, including the remaining two Jin'Kai guards, frozen in place, staring at Chloe, her weapon still raised, standing only a few paces away.

The girl sure knows how to make an entrance.

“What are you doing?” one of the other guards asks. Not the most famous of last words, but they'll have to do, because with two more dead-on shots from Chloe, that's the end of our last two adversaries. Well, original adversaries.

“Chloe?” Bok Choy says, hunched in a crouched position amidst the pile of dead Jin'Kai. “Put the gun down, Chloe.”

Chloe does not comply. Instead she shifts her aim and points the gun right at me.

“You,” she says. Her voice is as still and cold as ice. “If I let you go, you'll take him with you? You'll be able to help him?”

Everyone looks between the two of us. Except for Marnie, of course, since she's out cold. I stand up very slowly. It's still hard to breathe, and I take little gasps in an attempt to build up a reserve of air.

“I . . . don't . . . even know . . . what they . . . did . . . to him,” I say. When you've got an unstable person pointing a gun at you, the truth is usually your best strategy to remain unshot.

Chloe straightens her gun arm, making her gun more pointy-at-me'd than it already was.
“Will you help him?”
she asks again.

“What are you talking about?” Bok Choy says. He's edging carefully toward Chloe, probably in an attempt to put himself between the two of us.

“I'll try everything I can,” I say. “I can't promise any more than that without being a liar.”

“Everything in your power,” Chloe presses.

“In my power, and in the considerably greater power of my friends.”

Chloe lowers her gun and turns back down the hallway from which she came. “Come on, then. Let's get going.”

Bok Choy gives me a curious look, then trots after Chloe. Cole has picked Marnie up off the ground, with Ducky uneasily supporting her head in an attempt to be helpful.

“What was that all about?” Cole asks me.

“Not now, Cole,” I say.

“But who does she want you to help?”

“Not
now
, Cole.”

We all make it to the end of the hallway, but then Chloe breaks left as Bok Choy heads to the right.

“Wait,” Bok Choy tells her. “This way.”

“Their ship is up on the factory subhangar,” Chloe replies, looking over her shoulder but not breaking her stride. “Marsden gave it to the Governor as payment for my shooting his men.”

“Well, at least it's closer than we thought,” I say.

But Bok Choy still won't move. “Chloe, we have to get the others,” he says.

“There's no time,” she answers.

“Wait,” I say, stopping dead in my tracks. “What others?”

“There's no time. We have to go now.”

“What. Others?”

Chloe harrumphs and folds her arms across her chest in a pretty dead-on me impersonation. At least it would be if she realized she were doing it. She looks at Bok Choy expectantly.

“The other girls,” Bok Choy tells me.

The words hit me like a ton of bricks. The other girls. Could it possibly be the girls from the Hanover School? Ramona. Natty. Maybe even . . .

“Where are they?” I ask Bok Choy. “How many of them are here?”

“You're wasting your time with that lot,” Chloe says. “It's too risky. Not worth it.”

I take a few steps toward her and jab my finger into her chest to emphasize every crucial point. “Now, you listen to me, you little brat. I don't have time to completely deprogram the Jin'Kai propaganda that Marsden's brainwashed you with, but know this—Every. Single. Person. Is.
Worth it.
You follow? A human life—a woman's life—whoever they may be, is every bit as important as those
you'd
risk everything for.
Comprende?
”