We move as lightly as we can through the corridors of the factory. The walls are largely bare—painted stone and concrete—but here and there pipes jut out from the walls or pace them like racing birds. The whole place hums and thrums with movement and power. It’s a strange experience. For most of my life, power, energy, has always been so temporary. I wonder how they run it.

“I don’t like this place,” Rosie says. “It makes me nervous.”

I want to shush her, but I nod instead. The place is eerie. We go through three twists of the corridor with no encounters and then come to an area that has three doors. One ahead and one on either side.

“Now what?” Rosie asks.

Good question, I think. Each of the doors has a window in it, and we’re luckily not close enough for anyone to see us through them. “Stay down,” I whisper. “I’ll check it out.”

I crouch low and move toward the doors. Then, being as stealthy as I can, I raise my head to peer in each door. The door to our right is occupied. I see boxes, switches, and three men milling about. All with long protective coats. I lower my head quickly and turn to the room on the left. It doesn’t go anywhere but appears to be empty. There are tables and machinery, but no apparent exit.

As I look into the door ahead of us, I see that it is another corridor, or rather a continuation of the one we’re in. It seems to be what we’re looking for, save for the four people walking toward the door.

Walking toward us.

Crouching down below their sight level, I turn and grab Rosie and drag her into the empty room.

Correction. The room I thought was empty.

As the door shuts behind me, I see that a man stands in the room, just behind the door where I couldn’t see him.

He looks up in alarm. Rosie has her weapon out, but I grab for the man and hold him tight, my hand over his mouth, my knife pressing against his side. “Don’t make any noise,” I hiss into his ear. I know what I told Rosie, but we can’t risk a sound with people in the corridor outside. I pull him back with Rosie behind the door where we can’t be seen.

“Cover the door,” I tell Rosie. We’re screwed if they decide to come into this room. I can’t take four people with my knife.

I crane my head and wait for the dark shapes of the approaching men to come into view.

They come toward the room . . . then continue on.

I exhale loudly. Rosie nods at me. I look around for something we can use to tie up the man, think about cramming him into a closet and leaving him there. Then I reconsider.

Idiot, the voice in my head says. You need to start thinking more like Miranda. Because we’re blind here in this plant and this man likely has a better idea of where things are. Right now, information is extremely valuable. If this guy can get me to the Cherub faster . . .

“I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth,” I say into the man’s ear. “But not the one with the knife at your side. You make any sound other than a whisper and I will gut you so quickly that you’ll have time to see your entrails spill onto the floor before you die. Do you understand?”

He nods.

Taking a breath, I move my hand away. I hold the knife steady.

He only breathes. Then he says, “Please. I’m no one. I just work here.”

“That’s good,” I say. “Because all we need are directions.”

He’s sweating and I can’t stifle the urge to move my head back away from him. Away from his fluids. “We need to get to the airships moorage,” I say. “You’re going to tell us how to get there.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t, we’re going to have to find someone else who will and we can’t leave any witnesses behind.”

“No,” he says. “Why do you want to go to the airships?”

I look at Rosie, who shrugs back at me. “Because I’m going to get my ship back and take her out of here.”

“I’ll show you,” the man says.

“Good,” I say, feeling satisfied.

“But you have to take me with you.”

I’m about to refuse, but again I reconsider. Directions aren’t going to be much good down here. It’s a sound idea.

“Okay. You come with. You show us the way.”

“No,” he says. “You have to take me out of here. Out of the plant.”

“What?”

“Please. When they took this place over, they didn’t allow any of us to leave. They said they needed us to run the place. But it’s like a prison now. We’re watched and guarded all of the time. We don’t have any freedom. Please.”

I stare at my boots. They’re scraped up pretty badly. “Just take us to the ships and we’ll see what we can do.”

That’s apparently enough for the man. “I can take you a back way,” he says. “Over near the service tunnels. They’re not very traveled. Of course we’ll still have to pass through an open area, but that should be the easiest route.”

It sounds like a good plan, but I know I can’t trust this guy. Still, it seems worth a shot. “Let’s go,” I say.

“What’s your name?” Rosie asks him, and I roll my eyes. We don’t have time to make friends here, and he’s just a means to an end. But he answers. “Atticus.”

“Get moving, Atticus,” I say, waving the knife at him. “And remember, you try anything and you get cut.”

He swallows and then moves to a metal panel that I now see is a door. He pulls on it, using all of his weight, and with a clang it opens. Beyond I can see more pipes lining the walls and ceiling. “It’s in here,” Atticus says.

“You first,” I say.

I follow close behind him, and Rosie trails me. She slams the metal door back into place, and it sounds so loud in the tunnel that I worry the whole complement that mans the place will come to investigate. But I take a deep breath and tell myself to calm down. The tunnel smells like dust and stone and plastic. “What do all of these do?” I ask Atticus.

“They’re all for the helium production,” he says. “Some of them are power, but most of them aren’t.”

“And you help maintain this place?”

“Yes,” he says. “I worked here when Gastown first started. It was . . .” He stops and turns to look back at me. “Nothing like that had been attempted before.”

“Since the Clean,” I say. “I know.”

“They were good to us. They needed us. I mean, it must’ve been hard enough to gather up the people needed to run this place. Some of the people had been working here since the Bug hit, trading helium for goods, but it wasn’t in full production. Gastown changed that. But then . . .”

He doesn’t have to say it. I was there when Valhalla raiders decided they wanted Gastown, and its helium, for themselves, as I’ve mentioned. I try not to think about it much.

“So they force you all to stay here?”

“Some try to run,” Atticus says. “Those who do are usually tracked down and made an example of. Shot on sight or just . . . disappeared. I mean we’re scientists. Mechanics. We can’t match them. They’re thugs. Well, most of them are. But if you can take me with you . . .”

“I said we’ll see.” I wipe some sweat from my forehead and switch the knife to my other hand. “What do you mean, most of them?”

“Most of the men who came here are just guards, here to keep us in line. But there are some other people here as well. Scientists, I think. They’re different. They know what they’re talking about. I think they’re the ones really calling the shots.”

The sinking sensation returns. Of course it would make sense that Miranda’s cadre be part of the running of the plant. “Why don’t you all just work together against them?” I ask.

“When they first came down here, we did,” Atticus says. “We said we wouldn’t work, none of us, and they wouldn’t get their helium. So they took one of the techs and they killed him. Shot him in the head. Then they said they would continue to do that until we went back to work. They would pick at random, too. So there was no telling who they’d choose. They said if we weren’t working anyway, it wouldn’t matter if we all were dead. So . . .”

“So a few of you gave in and then the rest of you had no choice.”

He bobs his head in the affirmative. “What could we do?”

I have a few thoughts, but he’s right—they’re scientists. While they’ve been working, trying to rebuild the world, others have had other priorities. They’re no match for men who have been surviving, and killing to do so, for most of their lives.

Which is not to write them off. Miranda could hold her own, as recent events proved. But these people were probably outclassed in the violence department. And I couldn’t look down on that. I had gambled on those smarter than myself to help bring about a better world.

We move on.

After some further crawling, we arrive at another door similar to the one we came through. “This is the tricky part,” Atticus says.

I feel my stomach sink. “What do you mean?”

“This door opens onto a larger room. They keep some . . . specialized machinery in there. There might be people inside.”

“What kind of specialized machinery?” Rosie asks before I can.

“Um . . . that’s the other thing,” Atticus says. “We have to be careful.”

“What the fuck is going on, Atticus?” I ask.

He turns to look at me and licks his cracked lips. “They keep explosives in there.”

“What?”

“A lot of them.”

“Why?”

“They say some of them are for construction but . . . I think they’re a safeguard,” Atticus says. “There’s even supposed to be something really big in there. I haven’t actually seen it up close. I didn’t want to. But I talked to some of the others about it. They figure that if anyone were to try to take this place, they would set it off and take the plant with it.”

“That’s insane,” Rosie says.

“They are,” I respond. “Okay, we avoid anything that looks like a bomb. Atticus, you go first. See if anyone is there, make up some excuse if you need to. But be aware that if you try to rabbit, I will make sure I slit your throat. Even if there’s an army on the other side, I will kill you with my dying breath.”

“I want to get out of here, I promise,” Atticus says, and I hear the fear in his voice. “You get me out of here and I’ll take you to your ship.”

“You take me to my ship.”

Atticus’s hand curls into a fist, and for a second I think he’s going to take a swing at me. Then he squeezes his eyes closed and says, “Okay. I’ll do it. Just . . . please consider.”

Atticus opens the door to the next room and, on a whim, before I can think twice about it, I crawl out after him. He looks back at me, startled, but I nod and keep my face straight as he turns back to the room.

Rosie stays in the access corridor.

I scan the room and see only two people. One is thin and balding, and by his dress seems like he might be working there. The other one is from Gastown. I can tell by the furs he’s wearing and the two-foot-long machete at his hip. Only one guard. I relax some of the tension out of my shoulders.

Both approach us, but only one of them has his fingers near the handle of his weapon. “What are you doing here?” the thin man says.

Atticus scratches his head. “We need to get to the shipyard. I thought I’d take a shortcut.”

The Gastown man’s eyes are narrowed, discerning.

“This area needs to be kept clear,” Thin Man says. His eyes wander over to me, then down to my knife, and then back to Atticus. I think he takes me for a Gastown punk.

“Sorry,” Atticus says.

I shake my head. “I told you,” I say.

“Okay, okay,” Atticus says. “Since we’re here, can we just cross over to the access corridor? I’m needed in the shipyard and I’m already running late.”

“Okay,” Thin Man says. “Just be quick about it.”

We both nod and move toward the far end of the cavern. I try to catch a look at the equipment. There are large stacks of machinery for unknown purposes. Cranes, scaffolding, and carts as well. And then I catch sight of the large box near the center of the room and the writing on its side.

I’d never seen one before, but Dad talked about them when I was younger. And you’d sometimes hear mention of them in tales from when the Bug first hit. A Firestorm bomb. A tool the government never got the opportunity to employ the way they wanted to.

When the Bug started to spread, they needed a way to contain it. The Firestorm was their answer. A nuke wouldn’t make sense—the radiation would be impossible to contain and the blasted area would be contaminated. A Firestorm used a combination of high-yield explosives and incendiaries to basically scour the area. They had apparently planned on using them in infected areas, burning any Ferals (and innocents) to a crisp, sterilizing the land.

Seeing one, here, makes me stop and start to tremble.

The Gastown thug sees me falter, realizes something is up, and I see him in my peripheral vision coming toward me. I whirl around, the knife in my hand and slashing through the air. It slices him in the throat, catching and tearing it open in a spray of red that I actually don’t cringe from.

He goes down, gurgling, the machete in his hand clattering to the floor, and the other man cries out at the violence. Atticus grabs him from behind and pushes him toward me.

“What’s that for?” I hold the knife out to the man, blood still fresh on the blade, and point at the box in the center of the room. The massive fucking bomb.

“Don’t, please,” Thin Man says.

“Tell me,” I insist.

“It’s a Firestorm bomb,” he says.

Atticus exhales loudly.

“I know that. What’s it here for?”

Thin Man looks at his feet. “It’s insurance for Gastown,” he says. “If someone attacks and tries to take it . . .”

“They’ll make sure no one else has access to it.”

Thin Man nods.

“Where did they get it from?” I ask.

“A raid, I don’t know. I think one of the Brains knew where it was. We didn’t exactly have a conversation about it.”

“Brains?”

“Yeah. The smart ones. The Brains. The others are just the Muscle.”

“And you’re in charge of this bomb?” I ask.

Thin Man shrugs. “I know my explosives. That’s why they brought me in. I know how they work.”

I shake my head. This man is the flip side to what Miranda and her friends are doing. He’s a man of Science, keeping the tradition alive, but not to help anyone, not to improve anything. For himself. For a position, for power, for survival—for something. But only for himself.

Like you, Ben, the voice in my head says.

I pull back my arm and hit him in the face as hard as I can. Then I do it again. And again. Atticus is still holding him up so he doesn’t fall. When I’m done expelling my rage, his head sags on his chest, blood leaking from his mouth and lips. I quickly wipe my gloves on his shirt. “Lay him down somewhere over there,” I say. “See if you can tie him down somehow.”

Atticus goes off to take care of it and I go back to grab Rosie.

Her eyebrows raise as she steps out into the room. “Did it all go okay?”

“Mostly.” I point to the bomb. “That right there is a Firestorm. The big boom.”

Her eyes widen. “That thing is massive.” She shakes her head. “They can’t really think—”

“They don’t think,” I say. “They just hunger and they take. They’re no better than the Ferals.”

Atticus returns. “He’s tied up. I found some cables.” I stare hard at him. “You don’t trust me?” he asks.

“Would you in my position?”

“Look, I’m in this now. With you. Do you think I can still stay here even if I wanted to?”

“You didn’t kill anyone. And this was all under duress.” I think for a moment, then look at Rosie. “Check to make sure he’s secure.”

She runs off to the man.

Atticus hangs his head.

“Nothing personal,” I say. “We just can’t afford surprises.”

Rosie returns a few moments later and gives me a nod. “He looks secure. Pretty beat-up, too.”

“He looked at me funny,” I say.

She gives me a hard look but then smirks. “Now can we go and get your ship?”

I look around the room. In addition to the Firestorm there are boxes and crates of all kinds. There’s probably dynamite, C-4, explosives of every variety. They must’ve raided a military facility.

“What?” Rosie asks.

“I’m wondering if we should figure out a way to set all this off.”

She looks at me like I’m crazy. It’s not that different from how she usually looks at me. “You want to blow this place?”

I shrug. “Valhalla controls the helium now. We blow this place and they don’t have that anymore. They lose something big.”

Rosie nods her head at Atticus. “There are innocent people here.”

“You heard him,” I say. “They’re prisoners. Some of them might even get out as a result.”

“What about Claudia?” she asks.

And she’s right. I have no idea where Claudia is. How this would affect her plans. But it’s still hard to walk away.

“These people almost killed you and your brother,” I say, meeting her eyes.

“Yes,” she says. “They did. And I want to hurt them, too, but this isn’t the way. There are too many unknowns.”

I close my eyes and grit my teeth. Inhale. Exhale. You’re not here to save the world, Ben. You’re here for your ship.

When I open my eyes, I nod. “I’m still taking a few of the smaller explosives, though,” I say. I grab some of the C-4 and a few detonators. You never know when this stuff will come in handy. Then I turn to my companions.

“Let’s go,” I say.

My ship awaits.