Sterling Squadron (16 page)

Emma listened. Her dark, narrowed eyes eased a fraction as she warily looked Felix over.

“So they created the neighborhoods,” Madison added, “to raise every kid to the peak of their physical and mental potential, until they grew up and could be absorbed. It’s totally evil.”

Paul glanced into vacant room 3, hesitated, then seemed to decide something and stepped forward to stand with his fellow Resisters.

“We came to break you out,” Paul told them. “We want you to help us fight the Ch’zar.”

The other kids stared at them, stunned.

Having your entire reality turned upside down in a few minutes was a lot to take in.

But they
had
to believe, at least part of their story. These Ward Zero kids got put here because they’d all seen something the Ch’zar hadn’t wanted them to see.

They needed more than understanding, though.

They needed a reason to fight.

“It’s not just your life and minds at stake,” Ethan told them. “We’re fighting to save the entire world. We’re fighting so no more kids have to go through what we’ve been through.”

The first boy in the blue hospital gown seemed to wake up. Even though he was the smallest among them, he stood as tall as he could. “My name is Carl,” he said. “I’ll go! I’ll fight!”

The other kids, though, looked even
more
scared than before. They bolted back into their rooms and slammed their doors.

Emma took a tentative step closer to Ethan, still looking at him funny. She smoothed a hand over her long braid, thinking.

“It’s so strange,” she whispered. “I know what you’re saying is true. The things I saw that night, and Mom and Dad. They were different from the others—”

Ethan gave her a slight shake of his head, and Emma stopped.

He wasn’t ready to share that part of his story with the others.

She seemed to understand.

How would the Resistance react to finding out his mom and dad weren’t under the
complete
mental domination of the Ch’zar?

Would they suspect there was something different about Ethan and Emma, too? Take them out of the fight? Study their brains?

“We definitely need to talk about Mom and Dad,” he said to her, “but later.”

One kid who had retreated into her room bolted back into the hallway. She pointed behind her, trying to say something, but she was so panicked she couldn’t get the words out.

Ethan stepped into her room.

There was nothing but two cots, a washbasin, and a window.

He looked outside. Beyond the bars and the wire safety glass was a view of the Ward Zero courtyard and the electrified gates—where athletic-suited guards clanked over cobblestones and rosebushes and surrounded the hospital.

  20  

NUMBNESS SPREAD THROUGH ETHAN. IT
started in his fingers and toes and oozed up his spine into his head. It was a
total
fear lockdown.

He’d never faced enemies in suits like these before without a suit of his own, but the old soccer training nonetheless clicked on.

He snapped out of his terrified state and his mind raced.

There were enough athletic suits down there with shoulder cannons and electrified lances to run down and crush a hundred unsuited kids. But there was
always
a
way through the opposition’s defense to the goal. This time, though, victory wouldn’t be kicking a ball into a net. It would be getting out of Ward Zero alive.

One guard looked up at Ethan. Targeting laser sights flashed.

He backed up … into Madison, who stood behind him, gazing over his shoulder, her normally cute features scrunched in pure battle concentration.

“Those things,” Emma said, her eyes widening, “they take the kids away.” She whirled toward Ethan. “We have to save everyone here.”

“This isn’t a rescue mission anymore,” Paul said, his voice edged with anger and disappointment. “We came to
recruit
kids like us who want to fight—not wimps! We have to get out while we still can.”

Ethan couldn’t accept that. He stepped into the hall.

“We can fight them!” he shouted at the shut doors. “Come with us! If we work together, we can get out of this mess.”

The girl whose room they were in shook her head and ran off.

But another boy emerged. He was hopping into a pair of jeans. His jet-black hair stood up like a dandelion from static electricity. He stood next to Emma and Carl, who were still in their hospital gowns.

“I’m Lee,” he said. “I want to go with you. I don’t care where—as long as it’s away from this place!”

“Good,” Ethan said.

“I’m going to talk to the rest of them,” Emma said, casting a lethal glare at Paul. “We
can
save them.” She moved to a shut door.

An explosion rocked the building.

“They’re coming,” Felix said, and set one hand gently on Emma’s arm.

Emma hesitated.

Thunder rolled into the hospital. The safety glass windows cracked.

Ethan stared at the shut doors. He wanted to save the rest of the Ward Zero kids, too, but there was no time left.

They’d persuaded just three kids to come. It wasn’t the dozens of pilot recruits Ethan had imagined he’d be rescuing from Sterling, but it was a start.

If
they escaped.

Ethan had to think fast. What advantage
did
they have over the Ch’zar-controlled adults outside?

He and his friends were better motivated, that was for sure. And unlike the Ch’zar, who made up their minds and stuck to it, Ethan could be unpredictable.

“I’ve got a plan,” Ethan said.

Doubt crushed onto his shoulders like a three-ton weight. His friends huddled around him, though. They looked to him because Ethan knew how to get into and then
out
of trouble—at least that’s what Madison, Felix, and even Paul seemed to believe as they stared at him.

Downstairs, glass shattered and heavy mechanical steps shook the walls.

Emma stepped closer to Ethan. She trembled, but she was still here, still standing by her brother.

“We backtrack to the skylight and get out that way,” Ethan told them. “There will only be a moment to see everything from the roof and then we’ll be spotted. We’ll use that to our advantage and send our fastest runner to one corner to distract the enemy. The others will go down the rainspout on the other side.”

“Genius plan,” Paul muttered. “Who’s nominated as ‘fastest runner’?”

“Me,” Ethan said. “I wouldn’t ask anyone else.”

“No way,” Madison protested.

Emma looked at Madison and then at Ethan. She arched one eyebrow and cocked her head at Ethan as if to say “girlfriend”?

“No time to argue about it,” Ethan told them, not answering his sister. “I can outthink those guards. Easy.
But we’ll then need to find another way to get back to the main campus.”

“There’s a service entrance for food and trash,” Emma told him. “It’s locked, though.”

“Probably electrified, too,” Madison said. “I’ll get us through that.”

“Once back in the school, we’ll lie low until classes let out,” Ethan continued, “and slip into Fiesta City tonight. From there it’ll be a short way back to the I.C.E. suits.”

Ethan didn’t dare show a shred of doubt, even though there was nothing
but
doubt boiling in his stomach. Their only chance of making this crazy plan work would be to do it fast, get superlucky, and be insanely bold.

But would they follow him?

Felix, Paul, and Madison nodded their approval of his plan.

Carl and Lee shuffled but stayed with them.

Emma punched Ethan in the shoulder to show her sisterly support.

“Okay,” Ethan told them as he rubbed his shoulder (Emma
always
hit him too hard). “Paul and Felix go first, help the others up.”

The two boys darted down the hall to the skylight. They hoisted everyone onto the roof.

Ethan helped by pushing people up from beneath … and then he was the last one left in Ward Zero. He looked down the hallway, hoping one more kid would come out of their rooms to join them.

No one did.

Ethan understood how it felt to be paralyzed with fear and disbelief. They’d all been raised to respect their parents—every adult. So had he. How could they believe those adults were now the enemy?

He felt sorry for them.

He felt sorry for himself, too, because he knew he’d have nightmares about what the Ch’zar would do to them.

Ethan reached up and took Felix’s and Paul’s extended hands.

They hauled him up to the roof.

Ethan crouched with them on the clay tiles. No one spoke.

He gestured for them to go to the far corner.

Madison grabbed his arm and gave him a squeeze. She didn’t let go.

Ethan peeled her grip off and shook his head.

What was she doing? She couldn’t come with him. She had to unlock that gate.

Madison seemed to get it, but she gave Ethan a hurt glare before she moved off.

Girls. Why did they do stuff like that at the worst possible moment? He’d never understand them.

Alone now, he crept to the other corner of the roof and poked his head over the edge.

Adults in athletic suits searched the hospital grounds, spreading out. The building shuddered as a dozen more entered and tromped inside.

Ethan pulled away and looked back. Madison and the others were at the far corner. One by one, they vanished, sliding down the rainspout.

He had to buy them more time.

He swallowed, took a deep breath, checked his footing, and—even though his legs trembled—he stood.

“Hey!” he yelled down at the guards. “I’m right here!”

The adults looked up in unison, their hive mind acting as one.

“I’m Ethan Blackwood from Santa Blanca,” he yelled. “I beat you guys before. I’ll do it again. Why don’t you try to stop me, you—”

With a
thump
, a shoulder-mounted cannon fired—not an artillery shell or laser beam, though. A net
whoosh
ed over Ethan’s head. It spread out to a six-by-six foot
square, landed next to him, and swished across the roof tiles into a tangling snarl.

If one of those hit him, he could be stuck for minutes. Plenty of time for the adults to get up here and collect him.

He ran for it.

A dozen more cannons thumped.

Nets filled the air where Ethan had stood a second before. More landed behind his feet, to his right, to his left, in front of him.

He leaped over that last net and sprinted to the skylight.

Ethan skidded to a stop and paused a heartbeat for dramatic effect.

Below, the suited adults tracked him; cannons ratcheted and clicked as they reloaded.

He jumped
over
the skylight and landed flat on the other side.

Ethan hoped from the ground it’d look like he had just dropped
into
the hospital.

He crawled on his stomach to the rainspout.

No adults were on this side … yet.

He shimmied down.

Ethan hit the ground and ran to the back of the hospital compound. There were parked garbage trucks near the gate that gave his team decent cover.

Madison cracked the gate’s lock and rolled it open.

On the other side was a two-lane road that led into a tunnel. That had to lead out to the other side of Fiesta City.

They’d made it!

Ethan caught up to his friends, and Felix gave him a high five.

Before Ethan could congratulate the rest of them or give his sister a slug on the shoulder, two athletic suits emerged from the tunnel. The teachers inside their cockpits lowered crackling lances at the kids and blocked their only escape.

  21