Immurement: The Undergrounders Series Book One (A Young Adult Science Fiction Dystopian Novel) (14 page)

Blade lets out a snort of disgust. “I ain’t no gravedigger. Gimme back my gun and I’ll find the hog what did this and blow his brains out.”

I level my gaze at him. “If you’re not done grave digging by the time Mason’s ready to fire up the Hovermedes, you can stay here and fist fight the
hog
who did this.”

Blade throws me a dirty look, and then walks off, muttering to himself. Lipsy looks at me uncertainly and then hurries after him. I should try harder to reach out to her. She always looks so scared. And I could use a friend, even one with a stutter.

I sling my gun over my shoulder and make my way over to Owen.

“Do you think our bunker’s been outed?” he asks, his good eye misting over.

I squeeze his shoulder gently. “I don’t know. Maybe the rest of them got away.”

“Even Da?”

“The Septites wouldn’t leave him behind.”

Owen shakes his head. “If he hadn’t already drunk himself to death.”

“That’s on his head.”

A pained look flits across Owen's face. I feel a twinge of remorse for my harsh tone, but I’m done dragging the guilt for Da’s choices around with me. Eventually he’ll kill himself, if he’s not dead already. It’s a reality we both need to face.

I tense at the sound of three electronic beeps, followed by a smooth whirring that fills the air with a peculiar energy. The hairs on the back of my neck quiver, even my teeth tingle deep in my jaw.

“Let’s go,” Mason says, appearing at the rear of the Hovermedes.

“Hey! Wait a minute!” Blade tosses an armful of brush aside. “You want your pal here what got rubbed out to get his final resting place or not?”

I slide my gaze in his direction. “Throw in a grave marker and we’ll wait for you.” I turn my back on him, and follow Mason to the rear of the Hovermedes. He jumps on board, reaches out a giant hand, and pulls me in.

My jaw drops. Ten egg-shaped, pearlescent-white seats, lined with a matrix-like red cushioning, line both sides of a sleek center aisle. The entire surface area at the front of the ship—walls, floor, ceiling—is covered with a massive array of violet screens, flickering colored lights and electronic gauges. I shake my head in disbelief. “This thing is sick. It’s like walking around inside a lava lamp.”

Mason grins. “Aerospace technology. These ships were designed for the world government under the guise of a mission-system upgrade. They used commercial space travel as their cover.”

I run my hand along the back of the nearest seat. The material feels peculiar, sponge-like almost. Air intake ducts, shaped like rocket boosters, are recessed into the ceiling, and a flashing control panel nests in each armrest. I sink down into the nearest chair and press the button marked
WÄRME
. Warmth radiates through the chair, and the matrix-like material instantly molds itself to my body. Cocooned in the softness, I let out a sigh, and close my eyes.

When I slide up in the seat again, I notice a sign at eye level,
TRICHTER AKTIVIERUNG
. I squint at it, groggy from the comforting heat of my chair. I can’t decipher it.

I reach for the cabinet handle below the sign. Behind the small metal door is a red release pull. I pull my hand back and frown at the logo, trying to remember where I’ve seen
TechnoTerra
before.

It hits me in a flash.
The logo on the tubes.
Trembling, I slam the cabinet door shut. I press the palms of my hands into my eyes, trying to rid my mind of the gruesome image of a retractable metal arm suctioning up Sam.

“Derry!”

I startle at the sound of Mason’s voice.

“What are you waiting on? In-flight service? Go out there and round them up.”

Owen limps his way to the back of the ship, brushing aside my attempt to help him. I can tell by the way he moves he’s in a world of pain, but at least he’s on his feet again. After we get him situated in the middle section of the Hovermedes, Big Ed herds Blade and Lipsy inside. Hands bound again behind their backs, they plonk down in a pair of egg-shaped seats, a mixture of apprehension and awe in their faces.

“Everyone in?” Mason calls over his shoulder.

I give him two thumbs up and lean back in my seat. The sides of the Hovermedes come together with a vacuum seal whoosh. I scrutinize the ceiling. It’s impossible to tell from here there’s an opening anywhere in the body of the ship.

I lean into the aisle and crane my neck around to check on Owen. He’s already nodded off again, head flopped forward on his chest.

“Derry, come up here with me!” Mason calls back to me.

Blade jerks his chin at me. “Where you think you’re bleedin’ goin’?”

I flash him a brassy grin. “Guess I’m your new co-pilot.”

His features contort into a plaster cast of rage.

I head up to the front of the ship before he explodes. I know better than to wind him up like that. I’m already a marked woman in his book, but the satisfaction I get from watching him squirm now that he’s not calling the shots is worth it.

Mason sits hunched in front of a screen, sketching both forefingers over it in seemingly random circles. I watch him for a moment, frowning. “What are you doing?”

“I just sent an encrypted message to my contact in the Craniopolis.” He looks up, a sober expression on his face. “Operation Jakob's officially a go.”

I blink, feeling the weight of his words in my bones. There’s no turning back now. And, I don’t want to. I just hope we don’t arrive too late to save Jakob.

“Listen to me carefully.” Mason lowers his voice. “The only way to get the Hovermedes up and running is by activating the launch button with a chip.”

I glance over the vast array of dials and buttons. “So where’s the chip?”

“It’s an implant. Every clone is chipped at inception. All I have to do to start the Hovermedes is slide my fingertip into the slot on the launch button.”

My eyebrows shoot upward.

Mason rubs a hand over his thickset jaw. “The reason I’m telling you this, is that if anything happens to me, you need to retrieve it.” He waves his right index finger in front of my nose.

“What?” I shrink back. “You can’t mean for me to cut off your finger?”

“Just slice the tip and look for a silver chip the size of a piece of corn.”

I push his meaty finger out of view. “There’s no way I’m slicing you open, even if it is just a finger.”

I pout my lip at him. “Anything else I should know?”

He motions to the seat beside him. “Yeah. How to fly this baby.”

“For real?”

Mason’s eyes cloud over. “I’ll take us in to the Craniopolis, but there’s no guarantee we’re all coming back out.”

“Time we was flyin’,” Blade yells around the back of a chair. “Get this lump o’ lead in the air! And have that doggone waitress bring me a cocktail.”

Lipsy laughs. “Ma-ma-ma-make that two.”

I arch a brow at Mason. “Do we
really
need them?”

Mason throws me a reproving look. “You're balking at slicing a fingertip. Blade could slash throats in his sleep. And Lipsy can handle a gun. So,
yes
, we need them. Now pay attention.”

He does have a point. I slide forward in my seat to get a closer look.

“First you need to memorize the takeoff sequence.” He demonstrates a series of buttons in front of him. “Got that?”

Before I can reply, I hear a scuffle at the back of the ship. Big Ed bellows out my name. Heart pounding, I race back down the aisle to find him desperately trying to wrestle something from Blade’s fingers. “Keep him still!” he grunts.

I grab Blade’s wrists and hold them in place.

Big Ed straightens up, clutching his prize. “Stinkin’ grave robber!” He holds out his hand. “Get a load of this.”

I blink in confusion. It’s a piece of paper—torn from a notebook of some kind—with a single word in Prat's handwriting scrawled across it.

Diesel.

“I heard him telling Lipsy ‘bout the stuff he found in Prat's pockets," Big Ed says.

My lungs squeeze together. I lean over Blade’s face. “What else did you take?”

Blade's face splits in a broad sneer. “You gonna dance with me ’bout some dead dude’s junk?”

Big Ed taps his cheek from behind with the muzzle of his gun. “Answer her.”

The tattoos on Blade’s neck twitch under the cold steel. He hesitates and then reaches awkwardly beneath his coat and pulls out a small leather sack I recognize as Prat's.

I snatch it from him and tip the contents out on a seat on the opposite side of the aisle. I rake through the miscellaneous items, trying to ignore the guilt I feel for invading Prat’s privacy. A watch with a dead battery, a dog-eared photo of Prat and his parents at Disneyland, an insignia pin from a high school debate club—miscellaneous pieces that prove he was once a participant in life. I swallow back a sob. I’ve often wished I had some of Ma’s things to remind me of her.

I crush the paper in my hand and glare at Blade. His eyes flash me a silent message of hate in return. Somewhere along the way, I crossed a line with him. Given half a chance he’d slit my throat, and I’d better not forget that, even for one minute.

“Keep a close eye on him,” I say to Big Ed.

I walk back up the aisle and hand the note to Mason. “This was in Prat's coat. He must have figured if he didn’t make it, at least we’d know who killed him.”

Mason grimaces. “So Diesel made it here before us. We wasted too much time dragging the river for bodies. We should have kept up the pace and got here sooner.”

I rub my hands briskly over my face. “We have to make sure the rest of the Undergrounders are okay. Da, and Kat.”

“We can’t stop at the bunker now,” Mason says. “It’s light out. Another Hovermedes might spot us.”

“That’s a risk we’ll have to take.”

“What about Jakob?” Mason throws me a harried look. “We’re running out of time to save him.”

A huge sob wells up inside me. The closer I get to seeing him again, the greater the fear of losing him becomes. But Prat’s death has me worried for everyone now. “Jakob would want me to make sure his parents were safe,” I say, swallowing back my tears. I’m worried about Tucker too. If he did find his way back to the bunker safely, he may not have food or water.

Mason gives me an infuriated look. “Belt up,” he says, turning back to the controls.

Without warning, the Hovermedes lurches forward. I roll on my heels before falling clumsily backward into my chair. I fumble around in vain for a seatbelt.

Mason gestures to the armrest. “Control panel.”

I tap the seat icon on the screen. Out of nowhere, a harness writhes diagonally across my chest in both directions and plugs into slots in the seams of the chair—slots I swear weren’t there a moment ago. Pulse thudding, I sink back against the cushioning as we build up speed.

I’m supposed to be learning how to fly this thing, but Mason appears to have changed his mind about that now that I’ve diverted the mission. I can’t blame him for being upset with me. The last time I ignored his advice, Reid and Becca escaped. And now they’re dead. Maybe not a bad thing for us, but they didn’t deserve to die the way they did.

Frustrated, I slide down in my seat and study the menu on the screen. I scroll through the choices and click
English on
the languages option. Comfort controls mainly—heat, light and incline—but a few are more obscure. I shrug and select
Periscopic Infrared.

A clear convex disc the size of a dinner plate descends in front of my face. When my fingers graze the edge, it recoils like a living thing, lights up, and powers on.

My jaw drops. In the disc I can see every magnified inch of the forest terrain we’re hovering over. The view and range is unrestricted, almost as if the entire underbelly of the ship is a giant lens. The resolution of the images is remarkable, no blurring or shaking, despite our increasing speed. Through the thick canopy of brush and trees, every bird and animal is captured as an infrared image and analyzed in the bottom left corner; species, weight, height, age, temperature, each flashing onto the disc in quick succession.

I watch, fascinated by the unending stream of data. “Is this how the Hovermedes searches for Undergrounders?” I ask Mason.

He gives a terse nod, but doesn’t even look in my direction.

I roll my eyes and turn my attention back to the disc. If the Sweepers are able to scan us and assess all our vitals before they pick us up, it explains how they’re able to target the young.

I tap on the image of a deer that flashes onto the screen.

“Might not want to—” Mason sighs. “Too late.”

A hologram of a white head with no distinguishable facial features materializes in front of me. I shrink back in horror. For one crazy moment, I think I’ve conjured up a Sweeper. Lips form like a sand dune in the ghostlike head. An electronic voice fills the cabin.

Funnel activation request
.
Confirm extraction.

I yank my shaking fingers away from the screen in my armrest and recoil from the freakish image in front of my face. “Help me, Mason! How do I turn this thing off?” I wriggle to slide out of my chair, but my harness tightens like a boa constricting its coils.

The mouth in the head moves like animated clay, lip-syncing to the electronic voice,
Extraction denied
.

The hologram flat lines and fades from sight. I stare at the spot for a moment longer, half-afraid the head might reappear. I swat the space in front of me for good measure.

“I overrode your permissions,” Mason says, a grin playing on his lips. “The last thing we need is to bag a deer.”

I let out a relieved breath. “Beats hunting with a gun.”

“Sweepers don’t hunt. Their food is lyopholized.”

“Ly—
what?
”

“Dehydrated, macrobiotic nutrients—scientific junk food I call it now that I know better.”

I twist my lips in disgust. “Guess we won’t be dining out at the Craniopolis.”

“Won’t be there long enough if everything goes according to plan.”

“Speaking of a plan, you’re supposed to be teaching me how to fly this thing. I’ve got a million questions.”

“Shoot!”

“You said the ships hover above the ground and draw from the earth’s core, but we’ve got to be close to two hundred feet up in the air right now.”