[Contributor 02] - Infiltrator (2013) (26 page)

“Do you know how to get out? I’m disoriented,” Joshua said.

“I have a light in my pack. Shield your eyes.”

“But what if the Authorities—” Dara started to ask.

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t use the light on the surface, just to help us find the plate, but if they’re waiting out there, they’re going to catch us either way.”

Swallowing convulsively, she said, “Okay.” She knew no one liked it, but they had no other choice. “Let me hide the bag first.”

“It’s a good thought, but it wouldn’t matter,” Raj said in a soft voice. “The Authorities will scour this place if they see us coming out of it.”

Then they couldn’t be out there. She couldn’t lose, not this time.

“Cover your eyes,” Raj said, then he flicked on the light, setting off a chorus of squeals amongst the rats. It felt like the sun was piercing straight through her eyes, she had become so used to the darkness, and she flung her arm over them, gasping at the pain.

Seconds passed, Raj apparently allowing his eyes to adjust to the light, then he shuffled around until he found the plate. He stayed where he was, keeping the light on, as Dara and her father collected Ricky, his pack, and his weapon. He was soaked with sweat, heat radiating off his body, his breathing labored, and she and her father exchanged glances. Ricky tried to move, but he was little more than dead weight as they half-walked, half-dragged him across the filthy floor.

Raj did a quick check when they reached him, the grim expression on his face filling her with worry, then he clicked the light off. “Stay here. I’ll go up first, and you and your father can boost Ricky up to me.”

“Okay,” she said in a shaky voice.

As bad as their time in the basement had been, those first few seconds after Raj opened the plate were even worse. Her body tensed, anticipating Authorities swarming over them. None came, though, and Raj poked his head back into the hole, his face just visible in the wan light outside.

“Ricky, give me your hands. I’m sorry, man. I’ll try to be gentle, but this is going to hurt.”

Grunting in response, Ricky’s face was strained as he raised his arms. Dara and Joshua got on either side of him, each grabbing a thigh and lifting as Raj tugged him up. Ricky let out a strangled yelp, the only evidence of the agony he must have felt. When he was out, Joshua boosted Dara up, and Raj helped her out. Together, they pulled Joshua from the hole.

“Is it morning or evening?” she asked Raj, keeping her voice low.

“Evening, I think,” he said, glancing at his watch. They stayed where they were for several minutes, but no one came after them. “Time to move.”

Rising to a crouch, Raj pulled Ricky’s good arm around his shoulders, gritting his teeth as he helped the other man to his feet. Ricky’s head lolled around for a moment, then fell onto his chest.

“Is he conscious?” she asked.

“Barely. We have to move as fast as we can. I’ll guide you, Dara, but I’m going to have to bring up the rear.”

She gave him a curt nod. “Tell me what you need me to do.”

By some miracle they made it out of the ruins alive. The hair on the back of Dara’s neck stood up from the first step she took until they were finally clear, and she was amazed the building didn’t collapse on them. She was convinced she’d put her foot in the wrong spot, bump into something, and bring death crashing down on them.

There was no sign of the Authorities anywhere, but they picked the most secure shelter they could find before they stopped. Her weak knees gave as soon as they were safe, and she dropped to the ground.

Raj knelt next to Ricky, his fingers flying as he removed the bandages, and though she had no medical training, she understood how dire Ricky’s injury was. His skin was crimson, swollen and inflamed, the ragged edges of his cut seeping a combination of dark blood and pus.

“He’s septic,” Raj said. “He’ll die if we don’t get him to a hospital bunker as soon as possible.”

“Is there one nearby?”

“About an hour walk from here. We’ll have to carry him all the way.”

“Fine. Let’s do it,” she said.

“You take his legs, Dara. I’ll take one of his shoulders and Raj can take the other,” Joshua said, getting into position next to Raj, who hurriedly packed up his things.

“Let’s go,” Raj said. She squatted and put Ricky’s ankles over her shoulders, grasping them as firmly as her shaking, sweaty hands could. “On my count. One, two, three.”

They hefted Ricky up, and he cried out in pain. Raj directed her, and the three of them walked with a singular purpose for the next hour. She could hear her father’s and Raj’s strained grunting, along with Ricky’s occasional moans, and knew she had the easy task. His ankles dug into her shoulders, making them scream with pain, but she ignored it, gritting her teeth and staring straight ahead, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.

Just as she was beginning to have serious doubts about her ability to go on, they reached the bunker’s entrance. They eased Ricky down to the ground, Raj crouching over him, grabbing his wrist and checking his vital signs. Dara’s hands shook from a combination of grief, tension, and fear, and she had to give her dad the code and have him punch it in. Opening the door must have triggered an alarm, or else the door had been monitored by video. Whatever the case, several people came pouring out of the entrance, Mal and Tasha amongst them, and Dara’s bones turned to water in relief.

“What happened?” Mal demanded, grabbing her shoulders. Her father took a step toward Mal, but she held up a hand to stop him.

Shaking her head, she said, “Later. Help Raj. Ricky’s in bad shape.”

Mal’s eyes flickered over her head, his face creasing in alarm at what he saw, and he stepped around her, forgetting her for the moment. A few of the others followed him, and they lifted Ricky, rushing him into the bunker.

“Come with me,” Tasha said, her voice soft. Her eyes roamed Dara’s face, and Dara turned away from the searching gaze. Taking Joshua’s and Dara’s arms, Tasha led them down into the safety of the bunker. Tears leaked from the corners of Dara’s eyes.

Once again, her brain shut down, and she was only vaguely aware of what was happening around her. People rushed back and forth, her father watching them with bulging eyes. She wanted to put her hand in his, wanted to tell him it would be all right, but she didn’t have the energy for it. Instead, she stared at the floor, leaving him to his gaping, as Tasha bustled around, getting blankets, bandages, and hot tea.

“These cuts will need attention, but this will have to do for now,” Tasha said, the sting of the antiseptic she applied to Dara’s arm breaking through the fog.

“It’s okay. Ricky needs the doctors far more than we do,” Joshua said in a quiet voice.

“What happened, Dara?”

“Not now,” she said. Mal would want to hear her report, and she didn’t think she could handle having to tell the story more than once. It would shatter the fragile control she had over herself.

“Letizia?” The word was strangled, and she didn’t need to look at Tasha to know how much the question terrified the other girl. Dara said nothing, just shook her head as the tears flooded her eyes, spilling over her cheeks in hot waves.

Joshua pulled her into his arms, cradling her head against his shoulder, making hushing sounds and stroking her hair as she sobbed. The combination of emotions she felt was impossibly strong, and each sob ripped savagely from her lungs. She didn’t see how she could survive this. Her father’s arms were strong around her, sheltering her, giving her something to cling to so that she wasn’t washed away by the torrent of grief.

She must have dozed, because when she opened her eyes, she found herself lying on her back on a couch. Groggy, she sat up, rubbing her eyes as she tried to beat back the fatigue that dulled her senses and made it hard to think. She remembered Letizia immediately, and the memory brought on a fresh wave of pain, but she was too dehydrated for any more tears to spill. Later, when she’d recovered, they’d come again, and again. She was sure of it. Lifting her throbbing head, she saw Raj sitting in a chair across from her, staring into space with a vacant expression.

“Your father’s with a doctor,” he said in response to her unasked question. They were alone. She paid no attention to the room. She didn’t care about it, about the lumpy couch she was lying on, about the scratchy blanket someone had draped over her.

“Is he okay?” she asked, her voice hoarse, her throat raw from crying, from a day in the wasteland with nothing to drink.

Raj handed her a tin cup of water. “It’s nothing serious. Minor cuts that needed to be cleaned and stitched.”

“Ricky, is he—” She couldn’t say the words. They lodged in her throat, threatening to choke her. Not Ricky too. She didn’t know him like she’d known Letizia, but there had been something between the two of them, she had seen it. For Letizia’s sake as much as for her own, she couldn’t lose him.

“His condition is serious,” Raj said, his voice heavy. “It’s touch and go. I hope we got him here in time, but there’s no way of knowing. We’ll have to wait and see.”

The water didn’t want to go down, and she did choke a little, prompting him to thump her on the back. “Where’s Mal? I have to tell him what happened.”

“You will, in a minute. Mal’s got some stuff he’s dealing with, and I’m here to check your cuts, make sure you don’t need a doctor.”

“I’m fine,” she said automatically.

He gave her a colorless smile. “How about you let someone trained in medicine decide?”

Relenting, she sat quietly as he examined the gash on her side, the cut on her arm, the scrape on her leg. All were superficial, and he swabbed them thoroughly with more antiseptic, making her grit her teeth and suck in a breath. She was alive, and she was safe. It was more than she could say for Letizia, and she doubled over, clutching her middle.

“She wanted to leave. She told me. This was going to be the last time, then she’d be safe. She’d be here, and she’d be safe,” Dara whispered.

“Sometimes it doesn’t work out the way we hope it will,” he said, his voice gentle. He pushed a strand of her hair aside and examined a scratch on her temple.

None of it had worked out the way Dara had hoped it would, none of it. “The stuff we took from Andersen’s apartment, is it—”

“It’s okay.” His tone was soothing. “That’s what Mal is dealing with. It’ll take time to get through it all, of course, but he wanted to secure it right away.”

Sagging with relief, she inadvertently leaned her weight on Raj, but he didn’t protest. He continued tending her wounds, focused on his task, and she could see by the way his throat was working that he, too, was hanging on by a thread.

“Tell me everything,” Mal demanded, striding into the room. Tasha, Joshua, and a couple of people Dara didn’t know followed in his wake. She and Raj had sat on the couch for a long time, huddled together, neither of them speaking. She felt dull with tiredness, her sense of unreality fading away, leaving nothing but a cold, numb emptiness.

Raising her eyes to Mal, she didn’t have the heart to get mad at him for his brusque manner. His face was set in hard lines, as if it had been carved from stone, and the brightness in his eyes hinted at his feelings. He might not manifest his grief as she did, as Raj did, but it was there, she could see it. The loss of Letizia caused him as much pain as it did her.

She flicked a glance at Tasha, the girl’s swollen, red eyes bringing a lump to her throat. Dara’s eyes prickled, but they were so dry they felt as though she carried at least a pound of the wasteland in them. Her chest felt hollow, and she pressed a fist to it, hoping the pressure would alleviate the sensation, but it didn’t.

Her words slow, faltering, she recounted for them what had happened, finishing by telling them about Letizia leading the Authorities off as a distraction, so that Dara could get the bag back to the Free Thinkers.

“What went wrong?” she asked. “How did the Authorities react so quickly?”

“We thought we got everything, but we didn’t,” Mal said, sounding frustrated. “Andersen had new tech in his apartment, a security system we’ve never encountered before. It tripped an alarm as soon as you and Letizia opened that safe.”

“You said you disabled everything,” Dara said in a cold voice.

“I thought we had,” he snapped. He met her challenging gaze with one of his own, but pain and guilt were also in his eyes.

“Do you think my brother would have sent you or Letizia in there if he thought you’d get caught?” Tasha suddenly spoke up, her voice shaking with anger. Surprised, Dara shifted her gaze to Tasha, took in the way the girl’s entire body trembled.

“It’s okay, Tash,” Mal said, dropping a hand on her shoulder, though Dara wasn’t sure if he meant to reassure her or restrain her. Tasha looked like she’d like nothing more than to punch someone, maybe Dara. “I don’t blame her for being angry. I’d be angry in her shoes too. I am angry. Because we messed up, Letizia is gone.”

Silence settled over the room for a long moment, broken by the sound of a single, shuddering sob from Tasha.

“Raj said the stuff in the bag wasn’t damaged?” Dara asked at last, her voice a dry croak. She needed the reassurance that everything she had gone through, everything Letizia had sacrificed, hadn’t been in vain.

“No, it wasn’t. I have people sifting through the data as we speak. There’s more of it than we’d hoped. It’ll take time to analyze all of it, but I wanted you to have an idea of what you retrieved.” He handed her a tablet, and she took it from him, holding it so Raj could see it as well.

“Are those…” he began, his voice trailing off in disbelief.

“Plans for a new dome,” she finished. “A Creators-only dome, with swimming pools—swimming pools! Oh, look, and a park with real trees. And its own farm, with plots for all the best plants. How luxurious!” With each word she spoke, her voice rose, and Raj put a hand over hers. Starting, she glanced at him and met his steady, warm gaze. It helped settle her, make her feel as if she had a leash on her rage after all.

“What’s the plan?” Raj asked.