Downburst (28 page)

I wince. “I know it looks bad, but you have to believe me. I honestly had nothing to do with the attack.”

“The chief’s wife died when Aura was born. She’s his only child. He moved her around a lot to protect her, so few people had ever met her. No one even knew she was in Winnipeg, except your counselor and Naira. You planned it perfectly.”

“Lila! You’re not listening.”

“The tribe is in chaos,” she continues. “Not only did we lose the chief’s child, but we may have lost our next leader too.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were alone with Rye for over a week in the wilderness.”

“So? I don’t get it.”

She lowers her voice. “Did anything, you know, happen?”

“Lila, I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Aura and Rye were betrothed.”

“What?” My head reels, and I take a step back. “Why?”

“If the chief doesn’t have a son then the
Matoa
’s
son marries his eldest daughter and becomes the next
Riki
.”

“Rye is going to be the next chief?” It all makes sense now—his agitation when we discussed careers, his sudden hostility toward me when he thought I was Aura, his awkwardness when I asked if he had a girlfriend. He didn’t want to be chief, didn’t want to be told whom he had to marry. And he was forced to travel with me for eight hundred miles through the Canadian wilderness! It’s a wonder he didn’t kill me.

But then he changed. He started to like me. Maybe he thought marrying me wouldn’t be so bad.
I gave him false hope.
“So what’s the problem?” I stammer. “He can still be chief, can’t he?”

“His reputation’s been compromised. Alone with a girl—with a Rangi spy—for so long … ”

“Nothing happened! I can vouch for him.”

“Who would believe you?”

“Maybe my friends.” I fix my eyes on hers.

She looks away. “How do I know we were really friends?”

I search for a way to prove it to her, but I can’t find one. “Fine,” I concede, “but it still doesn’t make sense. If I wanted to upset the succession or whatever, I would have just killed him.”

“No—you needed to learn the location of the
Wakenunat
.”

“This is ridiculous! Everything I do is twisted, seen the wrong way.”

“Because there’s no other way to see it, Kit!” Lila snaps.

“What about the truth?” I shout back. “What about what I told you?”

“It’s too ridiculous. A normal person would have told someone that Aura had been murdered.”

A normal person. Yes, a normal person wouldn’t have hidden behind a dead girl’s identity, wouldn’t have run away from everything, wouldn’t have let Jeremy die or lied to Rye. But I did.

“Then I guess I’m getting what I deserve,” I mumble.

Lila opens her mouth and closes it again. Neither of us looks at the other. Then she clears her throat. “I should go now,” she says.

“Yeah.”

But as she steps onto the rope ladder, I call after her, and she turns to look at me. “I know you don’t believe me,” I say, “but will you at least tell Rye something for me. Please? Tell him I’m sorry.”

She bites her lip. “I can’t do that.” Then she scales the ladder, disappears over the edge of the hole. The ladder is pulled up, and the grate slides back into place.

I drop to the ground, shaking. I find a pebble on the ground and throw it against the rock wall, listen to it clang on the stone floor. I find it and throw it again.

When I lose the pebble, I roll onto my back and look up at the crisscrossed light that spills in from the other side of the grate, high above me. The sun is somewhere above me too, even higher. I try to imagine its radiant beams, floating up there in the sky, try to remember that day at the lake with Rye, when everything was perfect, when I should have told him.

“The wind sings so sweetly and speaks through the night, saying the long wait will shortly be done.” I whisper the lyrics, my scratchy voice faltering near the end.

It’s almost a relief when they come for me, when Jared climbs down the ladder and makes me go up with him, when Vivian grinds her rifle into my side to shove me through the tunnels and up the current. I keep my eyes lowered the entire time, make myself take deep breaths.
Just a quick drop of the blade, and it will all be over
, I tell myself.

We land at sector three and walk down the right side of the bridge, turning left then right. Then right again. Left once more. Maybe right another time. I stop paying attention.

Eventually, the passageway opens into a massive cavern, and I catch my breath. The cave is like the inside of an enormous seashell. The walls have been carved into huge, sloping ramps that move both vertically and horizontally across the walls and ceiling, the horizontal ridges fitted with tiered seating. Small LED bulbs trace the coiled lines throughout the cavern, turning the chamber into another Milky Way. This must be the
rukanu
, the gathering place.

And thousands have gathered. They fill almost all of the seats, chattering with their neighbors—men, women, children, all come to watch me die. When they see me, they stop talking, and the noise fades to a chilling silence.

On the floor of the room, which has also been sculpted to better catch the wind, stands a solitary stone block. Behind the block, an opening in the wall lets in the outside world, and I feel the wind whip around the curves in the rock.
If I could just grab it, sail out through the door …
Jared must have guessed my thoughts because his fingers tighten around my arm. He and Vivian push me down a ramp and toward the execution block then shove me to my knees so that I’m facing the crowd.

“Try anything,” Jared hisses in my ear, “and we’ll shoot you down before you can blink.”

I don’t answer. I just look over my quivering shoulder and watch the purple sun drop behind the mountains.

When the sun has vanished fully, I see the green flash on the horizon, the beacon of life and hope that now signals my death. After the flash disappears, the door to my right opens, and the
Riki
and Rye’s father enter the room. In his hand, the warrior captain carries an axe in the shape of a bird, its wings forming the two blades.

I look desperately back at the fading sky, trying to keep my face blank, but my lip is shaking when the chief and Makya reach my side.

“My people,” the
Riki
says solemnly, “today we witness the execution of an enemy, a Rangi spy. Her crimes will now be read.” He steps aside, and a person moves into the center of the floor. When I see his face, I feel something inside me break.

“Enemy spy,” Rye reads from a tablet in his hand, not looking at me, “you are sentenced to death for the following offenses. First, killing the daughter of our chief. Second, assuming her identity. Third, revealing the location of our tribe’s testing grounds and coordinating the murder of hundreds of our youth.” The crowd shouts curses at me, but he keeps reading. “And finally, attempting to expose the location of our tribal fortress. As an admission of your guilt, you have accepted your method of execution and will be beheaded immediately.”

“Wait!” I cry. “That’s not true. I never accepted—”

A bag is thrown over my face, stifling my voice, and someone shoves my head forward so that my neck is stretched over the block. I push against them, but a heavy boot is placed on my back, keeping me down.

I’m screaming uncontrollably now, kicking too. My whole body is convulsing.
Soon it will be over. Soon it will be over.
But I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die!

A high-pitched wail fills my ears, and I wonder if the axe has done its work, if that’s what I hear when I lose my head. But the wail turns into a scream, and suddenly a hot wave of air flips me backward. I hear a clang on the floor, a grinding slam. Then a deafening siren joins the shrieks of the crowd.

With my good arm, I tear the bag off my head. I’m lying on the ground next to the door. It’s sealed shut. Outside something collides with the mountain, shaking rocks loose from the ceiling, and as I roll on my side to avoid a falling chunk of stone, I hit something hard. The axe. It landed right next to me.

I look up. Makya is on his back, and Rye and the chief are crouching beside him. Nearby, Jared is holding his leg where he’s been hit by some shrapnel, Vivian lies on the ground in a puddle of blood, and those in the crowd who have not been injured are running for the exit.

The fortress is under attack.

Rye raises his head and looks at me. For a full second, we hold each other’s gaze. Then I leap to my feet and run.

I bolt across the floor, up the ramp, toward the tunnel. The sirens echo through the corridors, bouncing off the stone and driving into my brain.

I follow the crowd through the passageways. No one pays any attention to another person in gray, and soon I reach the chasm.

But there’s a jam on the bridge. I feel air blowing onto my face and look up. The fan above us has been knocked loose. It’s shooting air to the side instead of down.

Everyone is pushing their way onto the emergency staircases. I run for the stairs too, but just as I’m lowering myself onto the first step, Rye bursts out of the tunnel.

“Stop her!” he yells, pointing in my direction. The people around me look at him and then at me. I watch the recognition fill their faces: I’m the one who killed the chief’s daughter, the one who must have led the Rangi to their fortress, the one responsible for all of this.

Casting my eyes wildly around the chasm, I look for something, anything, that might help me, but all I see are the stars pointing down into the dark hole.

There’s no way out. As the warriors charge toward me, I look back at Rye, feeling the ache in my chest, wishing for the impossible. Then I swing myself over the railing and plummet into the abyss.

My stomach rises into my throat as I tumble through the air. Soon I’m falling past sector four. The people on the stairs scream when they see me. I want to scream too, but I can’t even breathe. Around me, the stars point the way down, blurring into blue streaks of light as I pass.

I struggle to curl my legs up, press my injured arm close to my chest, wrap my other arm around my knees. I pass the bridge at sector five. Any second now, I’ll hit the water. Its dark surface rises up to meet me. Closer. Closer.

Splash!
The icy cold liquid stings my skin and knocks what breath remained from my body as I plunge into the cistern’s dark depths, flailing my good arm. After several pulsing seconds, my feet touch bottom. I push off the stone and swim upward. My head bursts above the water, and I suck in sweet air.

Gasping and spluttering, I tread water while I look around for a place to exit the tank. I’ve got to hurry before the Yakone make it down here.

The LEDs shed rippling waves of blue light onto the surface of the pool and into the corners of the reservoir. Rocky walls surround the cistern, random wedges of stone jutting out in all directions. I should be able to climb those, even with a bum arm. I pick the closest one and swim toward it, kicking hard to compensate for my weak paddling.

Suddenly, a strong current in the tank wrenches me under the water’s surface, dragging me away from the light. I can’t paddle out of it. Can’t see a thing. Everything is so dark.

A second later, my body slams against rock and metal, and I feel the crisscross pattern of wire mesh push into my back. The pressure on the other side of the screen slurps at my skin and clothes. I can’t move.

Now I remember what Rye said: the cistern flows to the generator, powers the turbines. If I get pulled through the filter …

I place my shoe on the wire netting and push. Hard. I feel a snap, and instantly my foot is sucked through the broken mesh. The pressure pulls the rest of my leg along with it, and I slide through the filter up to my thigh. I shove my elbows against the rock, brace myself against the forceful current. My lungs burn.

I struggle to get the sling off my shoulders then move my hands onto the stone and push against the wall. My left arm wobbles crazily, but I slide myself off the mesh. With a tremendous tug, I pull my leg back through the hole.

Once my foot is free, the current flips me around, and I smack into the wall face first, my stomach stretched across the netting. I feel the sling slip past me into the hole. My brain is humming, lungs blazing.

I push off the wall, angling myself out of the direct flow of the current. Take deep strokes with my quivering arms. The blood thuds in my head. I push through the water. No end in sight. No light. Only never-ending blackness and the current clutching at my feet.

Just when the buzzing in my head has reached an ear-splitting pitch and my lungs are on the verge of eruption, I break through the surface. I gasp in deep draughts of air, but I don’t stop swimming. I can’t let the current catch me again.

Launching myself at the wall, I curl my fingers deep into the rock, cling to it dizzily for several moments, wait for the oxygen to reach my brain. My breath escapes in staccatos.

I pull my feet onto the jutting stone and relieve the weight from my shaking arms. Then I press down with my legs and continue inching my way up until I’ve scaled the rest of the wall. I push myself over the final stones and collapse on the bridge.

Whatever painkiller the doctor gave me is wearing off. The veins in my biceps are throbbing. My hands and forearms are too weak to even make a fist. Trembling, I use my elbows to push myself into a sitting position, but I know I can’t rest on the bridge for long. Even though I was probably in the water for only a few minutes, that’s more than enough time for the warriors to get down here. The mass of people fleeing to safety must have gotten in their way.

Weakly, I stand up and look around. This is the side of sector five without an exit, which means I need to cross the bridge if I want to get out of here. I take a dizzy step forward.

A gunshot cracks in my ears. I spin around and stagger into the tunnel.
Hide first. Then find an exit.

I careen down the sloping passage, the walls bending in toward me. My shoes slosh, and I know I’m leaving a trail a child could follow.

I duck into the first chamber I find. Wires and meters spread out along the rock, and I hear the thrum of the generator on the other side of the wall. I shudder, thinking of how close I came to getting a view of the turbines.

My vision darkens as I bend over to tear off my shoes and socks. I try to squeeze the excess water from my clothes and hair, but my hands are shaking too much. I feel a stab in my arm. The new bandage is soaked in blood.

I have to keep going. I stumble across the room, heading for the exit on the other side. When I’m through the door, I find myself in a long, narrow chamber. The acrid smell of chemicals assaults my nose. Pipes run from an enclosed steel tank to a larger vat on the other side of the room.

Keep going.

I stagger past the pipes toward a door on the far end, slipping through it just as I hear my pursuers opening the door from the power room behind me, hear their shouts. I have to go faster. My pulse pounds in my ears.

I’m back in the tunnels, at a fork branching out in three different directions. I’m almost certain the passage on the left goes back to the bridge. Should I circle back, try to lose them?
No, they may have left someone to make sure I didn’t backtrack.
That leaves the passage straight ahead and the one to my right. But no matter which one I choose the LEDs will give me away. I wish there were a way to turn them off.

An idea surfaces in my foggy brain. I take several steps down the corridor to the left. The blue bulbs wave out in front of me. Then I turn around and careen down the passage that was straight ahead. More LEDs surge on. Taking a few more steps, I spin back and charge down the tunnel on the right. Now stars shine in all three hallways.
That should buy me some time.

My legs are numb as I escape down the passageway. But the tunnel doesn’t curve. If the guards get close, they’ll have a straight shot. I try to run faster. My lungs feel ready to collapse.

At last I see a light ahead that’s different from the blue glow of the stars, brighter, more natural. I burst out of the tunnel and stumble to a stop. Beside me is a large lamp, and in front of me, a massive greenhouse.

Rows and rows of fruits, vegetables, and grains extend into the dark shadows of the immense cavern. Huge lighting fixtures, shut off for the night, hover over the plants. In one corner of the room, a fence pens in twenty chicken coops. Above my head stretches a carefully crafted glass roof—made to look like a frozen bank of snow in the shadow of the mountain.

The pounding of feet in the tunnel behind me sends me staggering into the rows of crops. I trip over zucchini and pumpkin plants, squeeze between strings of peapods, aim for the orchard, ducking behind the line of trees and racing into the dark.

I drop behind an apple tree and try to control my ragged breathing. Water drips from my hair into my eyes. I clutch the still-bleeding wound on my arm and inhale shakily.

A Yakone soldier enters the greenhouse. He switches on a light attached to the scope of his rifle and, swinging the gun back and forth, walks into the crops.

If I run for the tunnel, he’ll have a clear shot. There may even be another person waiting down the passageway.
But if I stay here, he’s sure to find me.

Moving as slowly as I can, I creep behind the line of apple trees. When I reach the last one, I drop to my stomach and army crawl behind a planter box, ignoring the blazing nerves in my arm. Ahead is the corn. I scoot into the tall dry stalks. Crawl on my hands and knees.

A light slices the air above me, and I drop back to my stomach. I don’t move. I hear the guard’s shoes rustle the plants. Hear him breathe.

Then he’s moving on, and I start crawling again. Clods of dirt stick to my wet clothes, the sweat on my hands, the blood on my bandage. I try not to brush the crackly stalks.

When I reach the end of the row, I pause and look for the warrior. I see his light disappear behind the henhouses. Now’s my chance.

I dash out of the corn, the soil slipping away beneath me. I slow down when I near the rock, but my bare feet only make a slight padding sound on the stone. As I reach the tunnel entrance, I glance over my shoulder. He hasn’t seen me.

Inside the tunnel, I force myself into a full sprint. Feel the incline in my tense calves and thighs. My straining lungs. The hallway is longer than I remembered. Don’t stop. Keep going.

At last I reach the three-way fork by the waste sanitizing plant. I slow down, not sure which way to go.

Blue stars ripple down the hall toward me.

I zip around the corner, taking the tunnel on the right.

There are rooms on either side of the passage. I dash inside the first door, heart hammering against my ribs. When I see where I am, I stop short, shuffle quickly back. It’s the prison block.

I run back to the hall. Through the other doorway.

Now I’m in a storage room, like the underground chamber at the
wakenu
, only bigger. It’s filled with food. Supplies too. But no weapons.

Something catches my eye on one of the shelves. Painkiller. I stumble toward a bottle and twist off the lid. Toss a handful of pills in my mouth.

A surge of vertigo overwhelms me, and I crouch next to some blankets. That’s when I see a door on the opposite side of the room, the side by the hallway. The one that leads back to the bridge. I stand up and lurch toward it.

I push back the animal skin and look in the corridor. The blue lights are still on, but there’s no one in sight. No footsteps.

Suddenly, a thunderous roar vibrates through the mountain, up my legs, through my bones. I lean against the reverberating wall and wait for the tremors to die down. I wonder briefly how the battle’s going, who’s winning.

When the ground is steady again, I dart out of the door and turn down the hall. But then I see movement out of the corner of my eye. A flash of gray. People emerging from the tunnel to my left. Faster! I tear down the passageway.

“There she is!” I hear them call.

I leap behind a curve in the rock. Their footsteps echo through the halls behind me. The only thing protecting me is the twisting tunnel. If it straightens out again, I’m done for.

And then I reach the bridge.

I dash across it, pumping my arms furiously, ignoring the blood that’s spurting out of my wound, the black circles in my vision. Any second now, they’ll get their shot. The other side of the tunnel is so close. I hear their boots on the stone.

Ratatatat. Ratatat.
I hit the ground and cover my head. My elbow slams into the rock, but none of the bullets find me. I get back up and sprint across the rest of the bridge.

Da da da da da.
A perforated boom collides with the bursts from the Yakone’s rifles, and the clashing gunfire ruptures the air, pounds my brain against my skull.

I dive the remaining three feet into the passageway then leap back up and peer around the corner.

Five Rangi are rappelling down the side of the chasm. On the bridge beneath them are three Yakone. All dead.

I whip my head back inside the tunnel and hurtle down the corridor. How did the Rangi get inside the fortress? Are there more of them? I trip on a rock and stumble forward. Barely catch myself before I sprawl on my face. I’ve got to get out of here.

I turn right and left at random, cursing the people who built this place for not marking directions to the exit. I hit two dead ends, whirl around and try again. The stars spin out around me.

At last the tunnel ends in a medium-sized cavern. As I stagger toward the far wall, I see a metal control panel with two buttons: green and red. I smash the green button with my fist, and the side of the mountain slides open. At last I step into freedom. Into an apocalypse.