CHAPTER 35

I tried to roll out from under my attacker, but our legs got tangled. I couldn’t see to punch, and I didn’t want to make a sound in case other guards came over.

“Thom?”

“Alice? Why did you attack me?”

“I didn’t even see you,” she whispered. “Although I probably should’ve been able to smell you.” She leaned away. “All the guards left the peninsula when you created that diversion. So we climbed the wall and jumped over.”

“Where’s Jerren?”

Someone else landed beside us. “Good work,” said Jerren. “How did you do it?”

“I didn’t. Ananias did.”

“How?”

“By getting himself shot. Don’t worry, he’ll live,” I added. “But he won’t be pleased if we waste this chance, so we need to think. Griffin wasn’t with him. Neither was Dennis or Marin. Ananias shouted that Griffin’s in the gunroom.”

Alice sighed. “And I suppose you know a way for us to get in.”

Jerren ran a hand through his wet hair. “I do.”

Near the main gate, guards were drifting away from the scene of the shooting. No one had died and Ananias had worked alone, so there was nothing more they could do. They returned to their stations, torches giving out a steady light as the rain eased off.

We sank to all fours and crawled along the battlements, keeping to the shadows. After ten yards we reached the sheer wall of the battery.

“There’s a fence at the top,” said Jerren. “Watch tower’s a few yards behind it. Get on my shoulders and I’ll lift you up.”

He tried to get Alice up first, but she hesitated. “What’ll you do?” she asked.

“I’ll be taking the route around the outside. Lethal if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“And you do know, right?”

He snorted. “Are you worried about me, Alice?”

“Fine,” she snapped. “Fall to your death for all I care.”

“That’s more like it.”

He lifted her onto his shoulders. She grabbed the metal fence and pulled herself up. With another breath, he readied for me.

“Are you sure you can lift me, Jerren?”

“Stop talking and climb.”

I stood on his shoulders and joined Alice on the battery roof. She was lying on her side, face turned away from the men and women carrying torches less than twenty yards away. I was certain they would see us, but the torchlight must have blinded them.

Jerren seemed to take forever to arrive, but I couldn’t blame him for that. It was a miracle he’d been able to climb the wall at all. We hustled into the empty watch tower so he could catch his breath.

“Lucky we decided to come at night,” he said. “This would’ve been occupied all day.”

“We did something right, then,” replied Alice. “Now all we need is for everyone to surrender and let us leave on our ship. What are the chances of that?”

“Unless we get some help, pretty slim.”

“Thought so.”

We left the tower and crossed the battery roof, keeping low and pausing behind walls whenever someone drew near. Finally we reached the top of the stairs above the gunroom. Two armed guards stood sentry at the door, talking in hushed tones, unaware of how close we were.

“What now?” I whispered.

“Follow me,” replied Jerren.

He ran over the roof to the far end. Dangling his legs over the side, he slid onto a fence below. From there he swung onto the walkway that led to our room. Alice and I followed, our descent slow and awkward. At least there was no one around this part of the fort to hear us as we landed.

When Jerren entered the corridor that led to our room, I grew suspicious. By the time he entered our room, I wasn’t the only one. Alice had stopped walking too.

“You’re going to have to trust me,” he called out from the darkness.

Alice didn’t move. “Why?”

“Because you weren’t the first people to be put in this room.” He pried open the door. “It’s where they put Nyla and me after our parents died. They didn’t want us around everyone else until they were sure we could be controlled.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I heard them say so. There’s a vent at the top of the wall. Behind that, ductwork runs along the ceiling. It would’ve provided hot and cold air back in the old days. Doesn’t work now, but it connects with the gunroom next door. I used to stand by the vent cover and listen to the voices. They were faint, but I knew what was going on. Knew what was at stake. That’s how I was sure they’d killed my parents.”

Jerren moved through the pitch-dark room confidently, having memorized every part of it. There was the faint sound of something scraping across the floor, and then he called us toward him. “Help me with the bunk. We need to take the mattress off and lean it against the wall. We can climb up the slats like a ladder.”

We wrestled the bunk into place. Jerren climbed up first and pulled the metal screen away. He handed it to me and I placed it against the wall. By the time I reached up to check that he was all right, he had gone.

“You go next,” said Alice.

I climbed the slats and slid into the crawlspace. Jerren was just inside too, so we moved to either side to make room for Alice. I figured she’d find it harder to pull herself in, as she was shorter than us. But when I offered her my hand she batted it away. She vaulted up and in, taking her place between us.

Now that we were still, sounds drifted along the metal duct: voices, and a low, faint hum. The voices, I’d expected, but the hum was unlike any sound I’d heard before, completely unchanging in tone and pitch.

“You’ll have to lead, Thomas,” Jerren whispered. “No room to change places.”

I shuffled along on all fours, trying to glide instead of lifting my limbs so that we’d keep the noise down. Alice and Jerren were behind me, but I couldn’t hear anything except their breathing. The duct occasionally bowed under our combined weight. Ahead of me, the hum grew louder.

I concentrated on the men’s voices, which is why I didn’t feel the metal edge. Or the gap. My hand slid into the room below. Though I tried to rein it in, I gasped.

The men in the gunroom stopped talking. The hum was the only sound, resonating along the metal duct.

Gradually the voices returned. Still, I waited for clues: occasional pauses in the conversation, something that suggested they were suspicious. But the exchanges were rapid and the voices were raised. Whatever was happening was reaching a climax.

I reached into the gap but couldn’t feel the bottom. It was at least half a yard across and there wasn’t much room to move about. So I flattened myself and stretched both hands across the gap, waited until my arms were safely on the other side, and pushed off with both feet against the edge. My knees rubbed against the duct, but the noise was drowned out by sounds from the room.

Alice and Jerren followed behind me, each wrestling with the gap. The duct was wider here, but after a few yards, it split left and right. In either direction, the new ducts were much smaller.

The voices were coming from the right, so I chose that way. But I’d only gone a yard when I felt the metal shifting beneath me. With three of us, it would be impossible to stay quiet. More likely, the whole duct would give out and send us crashing to the floor.

“You’ll have to wait here,” I whispered over my shoulder: “It’s not strong enough for all of us.”

Alice huffed. “Then what’ll we do?”

“There’s vent covers in every room,” offered Jerren. “This duct must lead to one. Tell us what you see through it.”

I slunk forward. The voices felt so close. One of them was Chief’s. He was usually so calm, but now he spoke quickly. “He’ll be back soon, so let’s get moving.”

Another flurry of activity, but no more talking.

I pushed on a couple more yards. The hum was loud, but I still held my breath, desperate to stay quiet. Just ahead of me, light filtered through the vertical spaces in the duct vent. I pulled alongside it and rested on my elbow so that I could see down into the room.

It was the largest room in the fort. The walls were black, lined with flameless lanterns. The solar generators must have been powering them. They cast overlapping circles of light on the dark floor, and on the group of four men who stood together. But the strangest sight was the space beneath the lanterns, where several guns were propped against the wall in orderly rows, just as Dennis had told us.

The hum seemed to come from a large machine to one side of the room. There was a table beside it, with an assortment of old-looking knives and other ominous metal objects arranged neatly on a white cloth. And a chair, with crisscrossing leather straps.

“Is the generator charged?” demanded Chief.

A man beside the machine nodded. “It’s ready.”

“Let’s start.”

I shifted position so that I could watch Chief as he moved creakily toward a rail. Below him was a giant glass cube, showered in even brighter light than the rest of the room. Two men stood beside the cube, dressed in bright white clothing that covered every part of their bodies. There was someone inside too.

Griffin.

He leaned against one of the walls. On the other side of the cube, separated by a glass divider, the floor was black.

Suddenly a door burst open. Out of my line of sight, someone strode across the floor. “What’s going on, Chief?” the new arrival demanded, silky smooth voice tinged with venom.

I couldn’t see him, but I didn’t need to. I’d have recognized Dare’s voice anywhere.