Out (32 page)

I don’t want to
play this game. But then I think of a way to screw the good doctor. I get up,
take the pen, and write “Car.”

“Oh, you miss
your car, do you?” Ashburn says jovially. Judging from the tightness of his
lips, I think he might suspect that I'm really talking about Carmen. “What do
you miss, Sebastian? About your…car?”

“Driving.” I
don’t elaborate. Ashburn’s veins are popping in his neck and it looks like his
head might blow. I feel a deep satisfaction but try not to show it.
 
“Let’s move on,” he says tightly. “Charles,
perhaps you—”

The claxon’s
piercing scream interrupts him. His face goes pale, which makes me happy.
 
It takes him a second to figure out what to
do.

“Sit on your
mats until I can ascertain what the problem might be,” he instructs us as he
darts for the door. Abraham looks at me knowingly. Noah glances toward the
door, listening for whatever scrap of info he can pick up from the doctor’s
panicked conversation.

Ashburn returns
with four guards. “You will be returned to your sleeping area. Nothing to worry
about.” He says it more for himself than for us.

Abraham, in his
meek and submissive voice, asks, “Is everything alright, Dr. Ashburn?”

“What?” He
blinks and squints at Abraham over his glasses. “Of course. Don’t ask
questions.” We file out behind the guards, but Ashburn nearly snaps, “Sebastian.
Stay.”

The sirens howl
continuously. I can feel an increased tension in the room; something is wrong.
I make an effort not to look at Abraham or Noah, but it’s difficult. Does
Ashburn know about the break out? Is it happening now? I need to get out, I need
to get to Carmen. What if it’s just another drill?

No; Ashburn is
too tense. Once we’re alone, the doctor sits in his office chair
stiffy
, snarling, “Your girlfriend will not make it out
alive. I promise you.”

I don’t
respond.

“Nothing to
say?” He glares at me as he taps a pencil nervously on the side of the chair. “I’ll
be sure she dies slowly, too. Sebastian.”

He pulls a gun
out from under his white coat and points it at me, shaking. “I know you had
something to do with what’s happening. I don’t know how you did it, but I know
it was you.” He clicks the safety off the gun. “I’m not going to kill you,
though. I’m going to make sure you never enjoy another woman. Or man, for that
matter. Just in case you come to your senses.” He aims the pistol at my crotch.

I don’t think.
All the anger, all the hatred I’ve felt for this man and his world, comes
rushing through my arms, my hands, my legs. I topple him, the gun goes off, but
he’s already on the floor, and I’m pinning him with all my weight. I can’t hold
him long, though; he’s stronger and bigger.

“You think you
can win this?” he hisses as he pushes against me. His sour breath hits my face
as I try and focus my anger at him, try to call up strength I don’t have. “You’re
a plague. God sent me here to help rid the world of the disease. You’re on the
wrong side.”

Breath would be
wasted on him. The gun. The gun is on the floor. If I move fast, I can get it
before he gets up. I’m losing my grip on him…time to act. I jump off, scramble
for the gun, and then turn it on him.

“That’s not how
it ends,” he says as he lowers his head and shoulders and tackles me. I grab
the gun in a death grip—I won’t let it go. “It ends with you dying, Sebastian.
You and her.” Then we’re a tangle of limbs, and somewhere inside of me, a fire
sparks, and I think of her. Gripping the barrel of the gun, I pummel his smug
face—the first contact of metal on flesh terrifies me, numbs me, but I keep
smashing it again and again and again until he stops moving.

My hands are
red and slick. His coat is dotted with scarlet spatters. He lies still.

I pick up the
gun, wipe my hands on the hem of his coat, and walk away. “Chris,” I murmur. “My
name is Chris.”

The hallway is
eerily empty—no guards, just the ear-splitting echo of the warning siren. I
realize I don’t even know how to get back to the bunk room, or anywhere. We’ve
always been led wherever we’ve gone. One way is as good as another, I guess.
Around a corner, one lone guard stands against a pillar, tense, waiting for
intruders. He turns his gun on me, and I point mine at him.

His arm falters
for a second; I think he’s shocked to see an armed prisoner. Why not? We’ve
been nothing but docile sheep. “We’re in quarantine,” he says.

“I’m not.” I
point the gun at his head, but I can’t—don’t know how—to use it. It seems so
easy in movies, but when it’s a real gun aimed at a real person…

The guard
doesn’t have the same problem. He shoots me, but I dodge and the bullet lodges
in my left shoulder instead of my head. Searing pain for a flash, then nothing,
just numbness. I aim the gun with my right hand, pull the trigger, and the
guard goes down. Before he can recover, I run. My shoulder doesn’t feel like
part of me anymore, it’s just a dead weight I’m hauling.

I don’t want to
look at my arm. There’s probably blood—blood used to make me squeamish.
Suddenly I’m hot, burning up, like I entered a sauna, but nothing has changed.
I keep shuffling forward, hoping to find someone who knows what I’m supposed to
do.

The claxon
stops abruptly—and now I can hear other noises, the sounds of people in the
distance, down how many corridors, I don’t know. I lean against the metal wall
to my right, and will myself to follow it, trying to stay upright. If I fall,
that’s probably the end. I think of Carmen. I will see her again. Would he have
killed her already? No. He couldn’t have, he didn’t have time. That means she’s
alive somewhere. I have to find her. I follow the sound.

The sound of
people running echoes off the walls behind me. I turn, ready to fight if I have
to, although with my dead-weight arm, I don’t know how I’ll be able to do it.
Even the good arm is shaking, and I’m dizzy.

Abraham and
Noah come around the corner, with three other men. They have guns. “You made
it!” Abraham smiles, then glances at my arm, blinks, and motions for Noah to do
something to it. As Noah rips a piece of fabric from the hem of his jumpsuit
and starts to wrap up the bloody arm, Abraham says, “The raid has started. We
have to get outside. Remember the numbers in case we get separated.”

“What raid?”
Now the arm hurts where Noah’s tugging on it. Waves of pain wash over it and I
breathe deep to keep from falling over completely.

Abraham motions
for Noah to hurry. “Our contact within the guard told me the raid was planned
for today. It worked; the Resistance went public. The Canadians are involved.
Someone is finally going against the
Anglicants
.”

“What about the
women?” Sweat is starting to stream down my face. So hot in here. “We have to
go get them.”

“No time,” one
of the other men says, glancing behind him. “I think we’ve been spotted. We
have to move. Now.”

“I can’t go,” I
say, turning to Abraham. “I can’t go without her.”

“If you stay
here, you’ll be dead. Just move.” He grabs me under the arm, and Noah takes the
other, injured one, which sends white-hot pain searing through my upper body.

They walk-drag
me down the corridor, with men behind, guns drawn. Finally we get to the
kitchen area. Someone inserts a key card into the slot, and the door opens as
if by magic. “Where are the guards?” I ask.

Nobody answers.
We just move forward, always forward.

The kitchen is
empty. The door, the numbered keypad, waits there unprotected, our way out.
Abraham keys in the numbers, and we move as one through that door too. We all
walk in perfect silence. This place has groomed us for that, at least.

We’re in an
unfinished cement stairwell. “Alright. We may have five minutes,” Abraham says.
“We’re going up to the roof, and from there, we jump down to ground, run like
hell.”

“What about
outside?”

“If we’re
lucky, that’s been taken care of. “ Abraham moves forward with the men trailing
him, then starts to ascend the stairs.

“I want to find
the women,” I repeat again. But I know it will be impossible to do on my own;
I’m feeling weaker every second, even though I think the bleeding has stopped
temporarily.

Abraham frowns.
“We can’t get to them. We don’t even know where they are.”

“We can’t just
leave them.”

“We can. We
have to.”

Noah stand next
to me. “My wife is in there. I know where they are.” Murmurs from other men
reveal that it’s the same for them too.

Abraham shakes
his head. “We could barely coordinate this!” he says. “We don’t have time for
argument. I’m going to the roof. Who’s coming?” Half the men follow him. The
other half stay with me.

“What now?”
Noah asks, blinking.

“I don’t know.
I’m not a leader.”

“You are now.”
Noah grabs my good arm and we run down a hallway that branches off left. “We
have to go to the main intake room; the entrance the women’s prison is there.”

“We’ll be killed,”
an older man whispers desperately.

Noah stares at
him. “That’s not the worst thing that can happen.” He presses a knife into my
hand. “Take this. Can you stab somebody?”

“I don’t know.”

“You will.” He
runs ahead of me, through a maze of halls until he gets to a door, I guess the
door to the intake area. He looks through a small glass, and gestures to me and
the other men. “There’s one intake counselor. Probably middle of the night, or
lunch. Sebastian, you take her. Kill her.”

“Kill her?”

“Yes. Make sure
she’s dead. We don’t need company.” Noah glances down at my hand, which is
shaking. “If you can’t do it, give it to me.” He doesn’t know I’ve already
killed two people today. I won’t think about that. Can’t.

“No. I can.” If
it means getting Carmen out, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.

“Once he’s
taken her out, we break to the women’s quadrant, subdue the guards and throw
the locks open. Hopefully they’re ready.”

“They’re doing
this too?” I ask.

Noah shakes his
head like I’m an idiot. “We’ve been coordinating this for months. You think you
just walked in and we decided to stage a big breakout for your benefit?” The
other men murmur; they’re restless. He stands aside. “Key in the numbers.”

I do it. He
opens the door slightly, slowly, for me, and I slip out, low to the floor so
I’m below the height of the counter. I crawl on my belly to the door leading to
the reception area, dragging the injured shoulder.

I stand up,
take a deep breath, kick in the door, and stab the woman in the chest as she
turns to see who I am. I plunge the knife in deep, pull it up as far as I can
into the flesh, and a river of blood pours out onto the floor — she looks
surprised. Then she collapses.

Noah and the
others rush in, and I follow, wiping my hands on the orange jumpsuit.

We flow like
water through another door, down another corridor. “Do you all have women in
there?” I manage to pant.

Most of the men
grunt with the little breath they have; we’re not strong. How we’re going to
pull off a prison break I do not know. But I’d rather die trying than rot in
Ashburn’s therapy room for the rest of my life.

Noah finally
holds his hand up to stop us. “We’re here,” he says softly. “If we’re lucky,
one of our guards is on the other side of this door. If we’re not lucky, it was
nice knowing all of you.” He takes a deep breath.
 
“And my real name is Justin.”

He opens the
door a crack, and I see a black uniform on the other side. We get in. Five
guards are there, women, women who are with us. An alarm sounds, sirens, then
gunshots, rapid fire, a searing pain like a hot poker digging into my back, and
I fall to the floor—sound fades away in a wave, like an ocean going out,
leaving nothing. Smoke floods the corridor, and red emergency lights flash as
lights go out.

“Chris!” I hear
her. I hear her, faint, but it’s her voice. From the floor, I see feet, try to
move, can’t make my legs work…Then she’s there, holding me, dragging me back
through the door. We’re borne forward on a wave of orange, but I don’t hear
anything at all. She’s talking to me, her mouth moves, but no sound.

The wave spills
out into the reception room; I glance at the woman I killed. She still looks
surprised.
 
I feel sick.

The flood of
prisoners is peppered with the black exclamation marks of uniformed soldiers who’ve
turned to our side. Seven or so take the front, kick open the main doors, and
sunshine washes into the room. I had thought it was night. Like a school of
fish gasping out of water we swim toward that open door, hungry for air and
light.

Hearing starts
to come back—faint pops of single gunshots, rapid staccato of machine gun fire,
the screams of those who are hit. I’d rather not hear any of it. Something is
wrong with me. Carmen still drags me along as if my legs don’t work…they don’t
seem to. Someone else is helping her carry me. A guard, a female, bleeding from
a shoulder wound.

Outside, the
world is ablaze. Flames lick at the wooden guard towers as black-clad sentries
jump to avoid being burnt alive. Carmen and the female guard drag me away from
the fire, toward a wooded area away from the fighting. “I’ve got to help,” I
say, struggling to speak.

“We have to get
you away from this,” Carmen yells over the noise. I can’t fight them; I have to
admit I’m totally helpless. Images are swimming in front of my eyes, like
 
objects seen through the heat of a fire.

 
They drag me back behind a stand of oak trees,
out of sight. The female soldier studies my face. “Can you hear me?”

 
I nod. She grimaces, then turns me sideways. “Wrap
something on that—looks like a puncture, lodged in there…should keep him from
bleeding too much. Looks like he already has a shot to the shoulder. But we
need to get him to a trauma center as soon as possible.” She glances at Carmen.
“So this is him, huh?”