Rebellion (15 page)

“Did you climb all the way up there?” I ask.

“Yeah. There’s a short ladder that drops down when you get the door open.

“I’m sure I can make it. If I fall, I might hurt myself, or land in the latrine pit and smell wretched all day. But I don’t think I’ll fall. I’ve scaled the side of a skyscraper in the rain, after all.

“Wanna give me a boost?” I ask.

“Are you sure?” Hector asks. “I’m taller than you, so it might be easier for me to go first.”

“I can do it. Just give me a boost, and keep an eye out for cam-bots.”

Hector crouches a little, clasping his hands flat. I step into them, and he boosts me up so I can reach the first stone handhold I see, above the wall. Digging my fingers into the spot, I heave myself up until my left foot is on top of the wall, and then my right foot is too. The wall creaks under my weight, so I reach for the next ridge in the rock as quickly as I can. My palms are already sweaty, and the stone has some wet residue on it. My fingers slip the first time I grip the ridge. A small noise escapes my throat.

Hector’s hands touch my feet, steadying them on the top of the wooden wall.

“Really, I can go first,” he says.

“I’m fine,” I say in a tight voice.

I can do this on my own.

Reaching for the ridge again, I find a firmer grip. I move one foot to the handhold I used before, and shift my weight off the wall so it won’t break. I take a second to steady myself. I can do this; I won’t fall. This is what I’m good at. I reach for the next handhold and begin climbing the side of the cave. The ceiling looked higher from the ground. Two more switches from handholds to footholds, and I’m close enough to reach the trapdoor, if I can hold on with one hand and stretch my arm out.

I tighten the grip of my left hand and dig my feet into the stone. Carefully, I move my other hand away from the wall and reach for the door. Sweat drips down the back of my neck and under my shirt.

My fingertips brush the handle. Only brushing—not grasping yet. I have to reach a bit farther.

Come on, come on.

My feet are starting to slip; I am going to fall. But I shove that fear to the back of my mind and push my toes against the wall, letting the soles of my feet rise a little to make me taller.

My fingertips brush the handle again. This time, I manage to wrap three fingers around it. I pull as hard as I can.

The trapdoor opens. The ladder drops with a clang.

Vrux.
Someone must’ve heard that.

“Go, go, go!” Hector says in a frantic whisper.

Without hesitation, I wrap my palm around a ladder rung and reach my foot onto the lowest one. The ladder reaches only to the top of the latrine station wall, but it’ll be easy enough for Hector to climb onto. I see now why it might’ve been smarter for him to pull it down.

I scurry up the rungs, through the trapdoor. When I check over my shoulder, Hector’s already climbing up after me. There’s no sign of a cam-bot in the latrine station yet. But I wouldn’t be surprised if one is on its way.

At the top of the ladder, I climb onto the floor of a steel tunnel. The maintenance corridor. The place is almost pitch-dark; I can barely see my hand in front of me. The floor feels damp, and I can hear water dripping from somewhere above in a steady stream. I take a step and there’s more wetness. No doubt it’s seeping through cracks in the floor and muddying the cave dirt.

I stretch a hand toward the ceiling to see what’s up there. My fingers brush cold steel; a ceiling. The pipes must be on the other side.

I glance back at Hector as he climbs up through the trapdoor. Once he’s standing in the tunnel, he drops to his knee and reaches down to pull the ladder up.

“That was a close one,” he says, catching his breath.

“How are we supposed to see?” I ask as the trapdoor closes, drenching us in utter darkness.

“There should be a lamp up here.”

“A light switch?” I reach for the wall and run my hand over it, feeling for one.

“No,” Hector says, and a light flickers on. He’s holding a small metal stick in his hand. A faint beam of light shoots out of one end. It reminds me of the light sticks marshals use in flight ports to help guide ships toward exit tunnels.

“Where’d you get that?” I ask.

Hector grins. “Stole it from a guard.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Really?” Impressive, if it’s true.

“Nah, just kidding, I found it up here.” He points to a small compartment in the wall with a door swung open. “I’ve seen the guards use stick-lamps before, though.”

“Right,” I say, laughing at his name for them. He shines the light in my eyes, and I turn my laugh into a cough.

“So,” he says, smirking. “Which way?”

Turning, I stare down the dark corridor behind me. The light doesn’t let me see very far. But knowing where the latrine station sits in relation to the quarantine facility, I’m pretty sure Camp B—and Logan—are in that direction.

“The quarantine facility is that way, right?” I ask.

“Yes. But the security hub is the other way.”

“You’re sure there’s not a trapdoor leading to the latrines in Camp B?”

“Why do you want to get over there so badly?” Hector asks.

I hesitate, unsure if I want to explain. But why can’t I tell him about Logan? Maybe he would help me find him if he knew the truth.

“When the officials brought me here, I got separated from someone,” I say. “A friend of mine from the Surface. I think he might be in the other camp. I need to make sure he is.”

Otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do.

Hector looks a bit embarrassed. But he doesn’t say anything in reply. He’s obviously hiding something.

“You know a way in, don’t you?”

This time, he doesn’t deny it. “If you follow this corridor, there’s a trapdoor leading into the other camp.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?” I can’t help sounding agitated.

“Because it’s not a safe way in!” he says. “The trapdoor leads to a room full of explosives. Last time I went over there, I was stupid enough to try to get down even though there wasn’t a ladder, and I slipped before I realized what was below me. I had to climb over boxes and boxes of explosives to get back up here. I was lucky I didn’t get caught, or blown up.”

So he was trying to protect me, it sounds like. But I don’t understand one thing. “Why would there be a room full of explosives in the other camp?”

“We use them for mining. I just had no idea the trapdoor led to that storage room. It’s right outside the other camp.”

My mind’s working fast. The stockpile could be useful for Mal and the other rebels—for me, even. If I could steal a few explosives out of that room and hide them up here, in this tunnel, I’d have easy access the second I find something of Charlie’s that’s better off destroyed.

But there would be security cameras to deal with, and guards. I’ll need more of a plan before I try.

“Well,” I say, walking past Hector in the opposite direction of the room with explosives. “Then let’s check out the security hub.”

Hector mutters something that sounds an awful lot like, “Thank goodness.” Maybe he read my mind, and was worried I’d ask him to help me steal from the stockpile. I make a mental note to recruit someone else for that, or do it alone.

“Here, let me go first,” he says. “I’ll shine the light ahead.”

“Sure,” I say, slowing my feet.

He hurries past me, pointing the light down the passageway. “We shouldn’t stay up here long. Sometimes the guards call people for inspection early in the morning, and if they call for us and can’t find us, they’ll raise the alarm.”

“We’ll just listen into the hub for a few minutes. See if we hear anything interesting.”

*   *   *

The air feels stuffy and cold. My lungs burn like I’ve been running; there must not be as much oxygen up here. But there’s something comforting about the darkness. I almost believe I could hide forever up here, and no one would find me.

But I’d go restless in hiding. I can’t sit still, not when I don’t know for sure if Logan is safe, not when I still don’t know if what Charlie’s planning is as bad as before, or even worse.

Not with Hector’s explosives stirring ideas at the back of my mind.

When we’ve been walking for some time—twenty minutes, maybe—we come to a set of steps that lead us down. Twelve steps. At the bottom, the path turns a corner.

“Watch your head,” Hector says, flashing his light stick at the ceiling, where one of the steel plates has come loose and is hanging low. “And careful of the wires.”

I duck under the hanging piece of ceiling and see what he’s talking about. The wall ahead on my right side looks like someone came through here and smashed it open. Big and small pieces of steel are scattered across the floor. Wires poke out of the exposed wall, some thin and forming a tangled web with hundreds, others thicker and lonesome.

As I step carefully over a chunk of metal, a spark runs along one of the thick black wires. I stop moving. These are
live
wires, and water’s still dripping from a couple spots in the ceiling. No wonder people abandoned this corridor; it’s an electrocution death trap.

“How far is the hub?” I ask.

“We’re already outside it,” Hector says. “But if you want to listen in on the main control room, we’ll have to climb.”

He shines his light at the end of the tunnel, just ahead. Thin metal rungs are attached to the wall, leading up through a hole in the ceiling. Not to another trapdoor, I hope.

I continue walking, not taking my eyes off the wires as I step carefully around them. When we reach the ladder, Hector sticks the light between his teeth and starts up the rungs. I glance over my shoulder before I follow, to make sure no one sneaked after us somehow. Not that I can see very far down the corridor. Someone could be hiding anywhere in the dark, though hopefully we would’ve heard them.

Turning back to the ladder, I climb after Hector. There’s no way someone could know we’re up here—it’s too dark for there to be cameras. I don’t have to worry.

The ladder ends a good fifteen feet up, and I crawl into another tunnel. This one is narrower, and the ceiling is low, but thankfully I’m small enough to fit. There’s a loud buzzing in the air, coming from whatever’s on the other side of these walls.

Hector crawls slowly on his hands and knees in front of me. There’s a lot less room for him in here than for me. Apparently he’s not claustrophobic.

We crawl in silence for some time. I’d ask how much farther we have to go, but I’m afraid there might be guards close by on the other side of the walls.

Finally Hector stops, and turns around and motions for me to stay where I am, three feet behind him. After setting the light stick down, he reaches and lifts a square piece of the floor with deft, careful fingers. Dust rises with it, and I pinch the bridge of my nose so I won’t cough.

Below where the piece of floor used to be is the back side of a vent that doesn’t look like it’s worked in years. But the slanted gaps in the vent let us peek at what’s below: the main control room of the security hub.

A red luminescence fills the place. At the center of the room is a circular table with a lit-up screen on its surface, which shows a map of what I’d guess is the Crust sector. A 3-D hologram of our whole planet floats to the right of the map, spinning slowly.

The opposite wall is covered in small, square monitor screens. They flash between images from the cam-bots and other recording devices placed throughout the sector. There seems to be a whole cluster of screens devoted to the work camps, each labeled
A
or
B
. I want to get closer to make out the faces in the images, but I can’t.

Two men sit in chairs before the screens, monitoring them. They’re dressed in the gray suits I’ve seen Sam and other officials wear. They’re laughing about something, but they stop when a door slides open on the left side of the room and a guard enters.

His blond ponytail helps me recognize him immediately: it’s Mal. An involuntary noise almost escapes my throat, but I stop it in time.

One of the security techs rises and gives him a quick salute. Mal salutes him back.

“Cadet, sir, what can I do for you?” the tech asks.

“I came to deliver these plans,” Mal says, his boots clunking as he crosses the room. He’s not holding his arm like it’s broken anymore. “It’s important you put them straight into the system.”

Mal!
I yell in my head.
I’m right here. We need to talk.

“Of course.” The tech takes something from him—a data card. “About OS, I’m assuming?”

“That, along with some new information. We’ve picked up an image transmission.”

“Blimey,” the second tech says.

“Mind if I slip this in so we can see it?” asks the first tech.

“Not at all.”

The tech turns and hurries over to the right-hand side of the room, up a short ramp toward what appear to be more monitors. The vent slits don’t let me see that part of the room very well. There are clicks and tapping sounds as the tech slips the data card into a reader.

I keep my eyes on Mal as he moves after the tech. If he’s not hiding his face and these men are calling him “cadet,” they must know who he really is. He must’ve made some believable excuse about his short absence from the Surface—or given up information about the Alliance.

“Would you look at that,” the tech murmurs. “Looks similar to our T-53 models.”

“But bigger,” Mal says with a hint of a smirk.

“Wish we had a clearer image. How many days, do you think?”

“Not many.” Mal turns and walks to the spinning hologram of Kiel. “That’s why it’s so important all the inspections are completed as quickly as possible.”

His face is stern; commanding. Even when the techs aren’t looking at him, his composure doesn’t break. I can’t help wondering which person is the real him—this official who seems privy to plans and information, or Mal the fugitive, who helped Darren and Cady escape the Surface and escorted me to the work camp?

But if that was only an act and he’s been playing the rebels all along, I don’t understand why he hasn’t turned me in by now.