Unravel (26 page)

Another wave of nausea hit Elissa. She concentrated on walking, trying to ignore it. Sweat sprang out again on her back, tiny points of prickling ice. She'd blacked out one of the first times she and Lin had linked like that, when, driven by terror for her sister, she'd linked with her to make that first hyperspeed jump, but afterward, she'd never felt so . . .

The sky spun, a tornado spout of blue, far too bright. Beneath her feet, the bridge tipped and slid.

“Lissa!”

Cadan's shout hit her at the same moment as Lin's hands closed on her arm. The world stopped orbiting around her.

Ady came up on her other side, and she felt Zee press close behind her.

“You're just hungry,” said Lin. “Remember Cadan said electrokinesis uses up energy?”

Nausea clutched again at Elissa's throat.
I don't have time to be hungry.
Prickling all over with irritated frustration, she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, step after step, concentrated on not snapping at her sister. Or at Zee, who was crowding so close he was pretty much
breathing
on her.

Her next step hit concrete, rougher than the steel, wonderfully solid beneath her shoe, and then she and the others were hurrying across the roof toward the beginning of the fire escape that spiraled down the outside of this tower block.

“Captain.” It was Commander Dacre's voice.

Elissa was waiting her turn to start down the fire escape, trying to control the nausea, the black spots swimming across her vision, the insane impulse that kept telling her to push through the others blocking her way, to get down the steps, to get out of the way of their pursuers now, now,
now
. But the note in the commander's voice pulled her head around to look at where she stood at the back of the group.

“I've told Control we'll be at the nearest communal square,” the commander said to Cadan. There might have been a slight betraying note—compunction? guilt?—in her voice, but her face was as clear-cut, as expressionless, as it had been when they first met her. “There's space there for the rescue flyer—and no slidewalks to get in the way.”

“How long?” said Cadan.

“Fifteen minutes.” For a second the muscles crinkled, a movement like a flinch, at the corners of her eyes. “We hope.”

“Let's hope it'll do, then,” said Cadan.

There was space now for Elissa to follow Sofia down onto the fire escape. The first turn around the spiral brought her back to face the roof, and she caught another glimpse of the commander's face.

An unwilling admiration woke within her. The commander was keeping herself together under a whole bunch of stresses.
And it wasn't like what Lin and I did really helped with that, although we were right to go and she was wrong to try to stop us. But we gave her a whole other thing to deal with, something she wasn't prepared for, and she did deal with it. And now here she is, back trying to save everyone's lives all over again. She's . . . kind of
—the thought came as reluctantly as the admiration—
like Cadan.

They made their way down the stairs, into the shadow between the buildings, feet echoing on the steps, all of them moving with a hurried quietness that every moment seemed to threaten to break into panicked running. The feeling of urgency, of the need to speed up, to run, to get down the stairs, far away from the building, boiled inside Elissa's veins, prickled her nerve endings. Any fire escape to one of these endlessly high tower blocks would take a long time to get down, but this one felt a hundred times longer than it really was. Elissa's ears kept straining for noises that would tell her that people—the would-be attackers—had gotten up to the roof, were crossing the bridge.

We should have pulled it down. Not left it there for them to use. But
—this as she went around another spiral and her knees
went weak beneath her—
ugh, I don't think I could have.

Finally, they reached the ground. Cadan was speaking, clearly but not loudly, before he'd stepped off the fire escape. “Guys, listen. We're getting to the nearest communal square for the rescue flyer to pick us up. Commander Dacre has the route, so we're following her. When we reach the square, we're splitting into four groups. Felicia, you're taking Lissa and Lin and Cassiopeia. Dad . . .”

He divided the others quickly, naming Felicia, Mr. Greythorn, himself, and Commander Dacre as the four leaders. “At the square, stay in your group, at your side, using its cover, until you get the sign from the flyer itself—
not
from me, not from anyone else on the ground—that it's safe to cross the square. Is that clear?”

Elissa found herself jostled close to Cassiopeia, and gave her a smile that tried to be reassuring, but that she knew probably wasn't. Cassiopeia's face was pale, a little blank. How many times, now, had she been hurried from place to place, without any say in when or where?

“Lis,” said Cadan, as everyone divided into the designated groups. He was, just for a moment, standing close enough to speak to her alone. His lips moved, shaping the words rather than saying them out loud. “You okay?”

She bit the inside of her cheek hard as she looked up at him, keeping her eyes steady, refusing to let her mouth tremble. He'd seen her cope with worse than this; she wasn't going to fall to pieces now. “I'm fine,” she said, low.

“Doesn't surprise me at all.” Just the tiniest smile crept into his eyes, and his hand brushed once, lightly, across her elbow, but it was enough. She was glad she hadn't let her fear show.
Maybe I can get through everything without letting him see
how scared I am. Then what he'll take away from all this is what Lin and I did up there. That'll be his image of me—someone powerful, in control. Grown up—grown up enough that he won't have to doubt that what's between us is going to last.

“Okay,” said Commander Dacre, quietly, and Elissa left Cadan behind her as she followed Felicia out into the alley between the building they'd just climbed down and its nearest neighbor. She hunched automatically, aware of the presence of danger stories above her head but not daring to look up.
There are people with guns—up there somewhere, looking for us.
If they'd already reached the roof, all they'd have to do was come to the edge, aim, and fire. The alley was narrow, no room to dodge—and even if the shooters missed first time around, the bullets would ricochet, turning the alley into a death trap, a slaughter house.

Who are they?
she thought for the first time. And:
What do they want?
Were they one of the groups who wanted to abduct Spares, or did they just want to kill them? The idea that they might want to abduct Lin was almost too horrific to think about, but at least it made an obscene kind of sense. Wanting to
kill
her and the other Spares . . . even in the minds of people who blamed the Spares for the state Sekoia was in, what would that accomplish? What was the
point
?

They moved along the alley in almost-silence, feet gritting on the sand-dusted ground, past another alley that led away into dusty shadows, then along the side of the next tower block. In this type of housing, there was one communal square about every eight tower blocks, Elissa recalled vaguely. There'd been more before the overcrowding got so bad, before the government had filled some of them in with more housing blocks. In the last few years the decision not
to do the same with the ones that remained had come under increasing criticism.

Past the third tower block, at the end of the alley, sunlight flooded into the space beyond. It glinted on the scattered sand grains, on the fine dust floating down through the air. When Elissa stepped out into it, her eyes snapped automatically shut and she had to force them open, blinking till her vision cleared.

The square opened around them, its walls the grubby off-white fronts of the tower blocks. At its center a set of plastic playground equipment stood on an expanse of springy safety-surface. Benches surrounded it, each of them, like the slides and climbing frames, molded in one piece, everything made without sharp-cornered edges that might be a threat to children if they bumped their heads.

The whole place spoke of safety, of the city's commitment to keeping its children safe from any possible danger. Rows of enhanced security cameras, required by Sekoian law for all children's play areas, gleamed from tall supports all around the area. The supports were tamperproof, each made of a paper-thin scroll of super-steel, the structure ensuring that each support was free of handholds and almost entirely impossible to climb.

And there were people there. For a moment Elissa saw them only as blobs of shadow against all the shiny plastic, then, as the shapes resolved into figures—five or six parents, a handful of children, an older couple sitting on one of the benches—she realized that since she'd been back on Sekoia, it had become, to her, a planet of officials and refugees. She'd almost forgotten that among all the turmoil and crises were ordinary people trying to live their lives. And now, it seemed
crazy that in the midst of this everyday scene, she and the other twins were running from people who wanted to kill them.

She couldn't see Cadan's group yet, so they must be working their way around to the far side of the square, but Mr. Greythorn's group were over to the left of the square, and at the right side, Commander Dacre stood in the shadows of an alley. By the look on her face, the presence of other people hadn't been at the front of her mind either.

If it was me in charge, I wouldn't know which to do. Risk calling attention to the group by telling the playground people to move, or risk their safety by letting them stay where they are.

The next surge of dizziness, though, wiped the thoughts from her head. She felt herself sway, and put out a hand to the rough plaster edge of the nearest wall.

“You have to
eat
,” said Lin's voice, coming out of the blur at the edge of Elissa's vision.

“I
know
. You said. But I don't
have
anything—”

“I do.” Lin pushed something into her hand. Elissa blinked, clearing her eyes, and looked down. It was a chocograin bar.

At the sight, Elissa was all at once ravenously, frantically hungry. Her fingers shook as she tore the bar open and bit into it.

The taste of chocolate flooded her mouth. One swallow, and her nausea disappeared as if it had never been. Chocograin bars were the product of a few years' back special initiative by the Sekoian Health Ministry. Elissa had always found this particular attempt to blend health food and treat food pretty unsuccessful, but right now it tasted like the most amazing thing she'd ever eaten.

She bit off another mouthful, then stuck out her tongue to catch a crumb of loose chocolate before it fell. Lin had
unwrapped another bar and was halfway through it already.

Elissa had to suppress laughter. “Have you been
stockpiling
these?”

“I like them,” said Lin.

“Yeah. Clearly.” She tried to chew the next mouthful slowly, but now that it had been fed her body was clamoring for more food and she couldn't slow her pace at all. Another few crumbs fell to catch in a fold of the wrapper, and she blotted them up with her fingertip so as not to lose out on even that tiny amount of calories. This side effect was
super
unexpected. She'd helped Lin with her electrokinesis before. And plugging into the hyperdrive on the
Phoenix
, moving the entire
ship
, surely that would have taken more energy than just bending some metal bars?

Today, though, this was the first time I ever worked with her consciously, using our link to do something, not just letting it happen, letting her use me as an anchor, as a power source. This was the first time it was both of us doing it.

Which was—nausea and sudden crazy appetite aside—pretty cool.

“It's getting stronger, isn't it?” said Lin quietly beside her, holding out another chocograin bar.

Elissa looked up from her crumb salvage and took it, just managing not to snatch. She ripped it open. “Yes. Using it like that—and the
talking
. That's new.”

In the alley at the right, just past the one the commander stood in, a movement in the shadows caught her eye, told her that Cadan's group had reached their destination.

Which was a relief, but . . .
Any minute now, those people are going to notice us. And creeping up like this, we look
like
a threat, not as if we're escaping from one.

Swallowing her mouthful of chocolate, she cast a look up toward the sky, despite knowing perfectly well that she'd hear the rescue flyer before she saw it. But the sky stretched flat and blue and empty above the rooftops. If the flyer was already on its way, it was nowhere near them yet.

The rooftops were empty too—or at least as far as she could see from where she stood. No sign of pursuit.

If the flyer comes soon, we can get out before anything else happens. Get somewhere safe . . . somewhere
actually
safe.

“Is it . . . okay?”

Elissa looked back at Lin, confused for a second as to what she was talking about. Her twin had finished her bar and was holding the empty wrapper, folding it over and over, one neat crease after another. She wasn't looking at Elissa, and hesitation, uncertainty, dragged at her voice.

She was asking about the link. She was asking if it was okay that it was . . .
stronger
, she'd said, but to Elissa it felt as if the link wasn't just getting stronger, but
tighter
, drawing their minds closer so they were no longer picking up just echoes of each other's thoughts, but the actual thoughts themselves.