The Line Book One: Carrier (15 page)

“East wall, Sonya! East! Your other east!”

I bounded up the stairs and yanked open the door to Tym’s liar.

Tym was out of his seat and standing in front of the screens. His chair was tipped over on its side.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “What’s happening?”

Tym didn’t answer. He flung windows around the screens like a symphony conductor. “Two seconds, girl!”

“Five minutes left!” Sonya whispered.

“Forget it. Get out!”

“Four minutes—now it says four!”

“Sonya!” Doc yelled over the speakers.

From the server room window on the screens, Sonya stood right where I’d seen her last, holding the data box to the hard drive. But she was sweating, and her eyes darted about the room as if she was surrounded by a swarm of hornets.

“Three minutes, forty-five seconds!” she whispered.

Tym pointed to a window on the screens as if she could see the guard rounding the corner toward the server room. “Sonya, get out!”

With one hand holding the data box and the other the server cube, Sonya pushed the cube deeper into the shelf, sending the server box directly behind it to the floor with a crash.

“Sonya!” Tym yelped.

She rested her data box onto the shelf to free her hands, then rummaged in her backpack, slipping the screwdriver and socket wrench into the sides of her pants, which was tricky, considering she had no pockets and the pants were skin-tight. Then Sonya crossed the room and tied her backpack around the handles of the double doors, knotting them together.

“Guard in ten seconds!” he bellowed. His hands shot to his head in panic and his hat fell to the floor.

The guard had obviously heard the crash of the server cube and was running toward it.

Sonya ran back to the data box and read the timer. “Two minutes.”

Tym was shouting. “Not good, girl! Get out! Get out!”

Doc was yelling too. “Now! Get out now!”

“Leave the box!” Tym bellowed.

She appeared reluctant to leave. “They’ll trace it back to you!”

Tym looked as if he could have used the bucket himself. He was deathly pale. “We’re all dead anyway if you don’t get the hell out of there!”

The doors to the server room shook back and forth, but the knotted backpack held. For the moment.

Sonya checked the timer. “One minute, forty-five.”

I couldn’t hold my tongue a moment longer. I knew she probably couldn’t hear me, but I shouted, “Sonya, please!”

My voice hit her like electricity.

She ran around the aisles and swiftly got under the open air grate, snatched two fallen screws from the floor and jumped up, grabbing the ledge of the open air grate with her hands, and pulled herself up. Once she had one knee in, she flung around and snatched the grate from the other side, whipping out the socket wrench and screwing one screw half in place, then the other. She slithered down the air duct like a greasy snake just as the guard burst through the server room doors.

Tym gathered his chair from the floor and started flinging windows around, canceling loops and pulling up the timer from the data box.

Fifty seconds.

There was no sound from the server room without Sonya’s earpiece, but I saw the guard place his index finger to his earlobe and compress a black button. He was talking fast. I could just make out the words “server room.” He grabbed Sonya’s backpack and dug through it. He pulled out a laser cutter. The guard had unknowingly kicked the flashlight under a shelf.

Tym cussed. “Her DNA is on that flashlight.”

Doc swore from the speakers.

“Elevator is all the way up on the thirtieth floor, Sonya. You’ll have to climb.”

“Gotcha.” She slid from the air duct into the elevator shaft and disappeared from view.

Tym set to work on the windows, verifying where all the guards were and checking the data box timer.

Thirty seconds.

The guard in the server room was inspecting the fallen cube on the floor and hadn’t yet noticed the data box on the other side.

Sonya breathed hard through the speakers as she booked through the vents at record speed.

Occasionally, Doc let a swear word slide off his lips.

Tym closed all loops to the window screens in the sub-basement air ducts but kept the one for the server room open.

The guard picked up the broken server and tried to see where it had come from. The shelves above were full. He held the broken server and followed around to the other side of the shelf just as another guard came in with a team of people wearing white coats. They were screaming at each other.

Twenty seconds.

The guard noticed the disheveled cubes and then the data box. He didn’t rip it from the server, but inspected it and wrote into his tablet the serial number off the cube.

Fifteen seconds.

The guard left the data box plugged in and turned around, looking square into the security camera.

“Shit,” Tym said.

The guard touched the earpiece and mouthed a few words I couldn’t make out.

Twelve seconds.

The guard reached over and unplugged the data box just as the timer reached eleven seconds.

Then all the windows went black, and we were engulfed in complete darkness. The light from the screens had been our only beacon. I heard a click and saw Tym standing at his desk, his fingers lingering on a desk lamp.

“Sonya, they know you’re in there and they know I’ve been watching. It won’t take long for them to trace it back to me. Minutes, even. You left the laser cutter in the backpack so you can’t cut through the conference room window to get out. You’ll have to find another way. Doc, you can’t wait there. Any minute now the guards are going to lock that place down. You’re suspicious, and I doubt a pedigree will help you now. Head to the rendezvous point. Baby bird and I will meet you there.”

Sonya and Doc both answered at the same time. “Copy that.”

Then Tym reached down where the wall met the floor and ripped a power cord right out of the socket.

Now, even the lamp was dead. The low hum from the servers clicked once then came to a halt. We stood in silent stillness. My gasping breaths echoed in the quiet of the warehouse.

Tym was beside me, searching in the dark for my hand. “Come on, baby bird,” he said. “Time to fly.”

Chapter Fourteen

Tym held my hand as we ran for the door. How he knew where to find it in complete darkness, I wasn’t sure. But I followed him.

We burst into the main room of the warehouse, thundered down the stairs and went to Tym’s room. He grabbed an old canteen on a strap, which he draped over my shoulder, and a tablet, which he put into a satchel and slung over his own shoulder.

Then we were out in the alley, running. It was midmorning, and the air was still thick with low clouds, making everything milky. In between each graffiti-covered warehouse was an alley filled with abandoned cars, overflowing trash bins and cascades of garbage. We weaved our way through the maze of empty warehouses, then turned a corner and ran some more. I had no idea where we were. All the warehouses looked the same. I think we were about three blocks away when we heard the sirens.

“Damn,” Tym said.

We turned another sharp corner and kept going.

My lungs stung as I forced my aching legs to keep up. Tym dragged me along, the whole while cursing under his breath and formulating escape plans.

“Nope, can’t go that way, they’ll have that exit covered. Damn! All right, let’s try this. Hell!”

When we reached a chain link fence, he opened a hole held together with twisty ties and shoved me through, then jammed his body through on all fours. On the opposite side of the fence we ran down the block of old empty factories, then turned a corner and found ourselves in the middle of a fish market.

Booths of rotting fish stank the block to high heaven. I immediately gagged, but since I’d already thrown up all the food in my stomach, it was only bile. Tym saw me choke but didn’t slow down. He pulled me along. I kept my other hand over my nose to keep from gagging again.

There were no cars on the block, only booths and a throng of people. There must have been hundreds, all packed together. The crowd shouted, haggled and fought with one another. It was bedlam.

“Keep your head down,” Tym said.

I pulled the collar up on my army jacket then covered my nose again, choking on the stench. I blindly allowed Tym to lead me through the crowd, but my legs shook with adrenaline and fear and I stumbled.

I couldn’t understand why people were buying the rotted fish, but the street was packed with customers. Old women lugging baskets, young mothers trailing toddlers, men with bloody aprons. We bumped and pushed through them like a bulldozer. Tym didn’t even bother to apologize as he shoved people out of the way.

“Don’t look up,” he said. “When we reach the end of the street, up and to the right there’s a big black-glass building. It’s on the corner of 22nd and H.”

“Okay.”

“The bridge is on the other side of that building, okay? 22nd and I.”

“Okay.”

“Sonya and Doc will meet you under it.” He tugged my hand and choked on the words. “If neither one of them shows up, you come back here to this street and you talk to Eron. You hear me? Eron.”

“He sells fish?” I asked.

“This isn’t a fish market,” Tym said. “It’s just a front for the black market. Now, what’s the guy’s name I told you?”

“Eron.”

Why was he telling me this? Wasn’t he coming with me? My throat clenched.

“Right. He’s an old friend. He’ll get you out of Central.” He shoved an old man out of the way. A woman screamed.

It seemed to me we were drawing attention to ourselves. “Tym?”

His words were rash and fierce. “Don’t look up! Don’t let anyone see you!”

“Okay! Okay!”

“We’re almost to the end of the street. When I say run, run. And no matter what you hear, you run to that bridge and you don’t stop. Okay?” He fought back tears. His breathing was rasping and harsh.

Run without him? What did he mean? “Tym?”

“You don’t stop, you understand?” He coughed on a sob, ran the back of his hand across his eyes and yanked me through the crowd.

“But, Tym—” He was sweating profusely and huffing in fast gasps.

“All right, here we go,” he said.

I looked up.

At the end of the street there was a security squad car coming to a stop. I instinctively slowed, but Tym pulled me along. I glanced behind us and saw two squad cars parked where we had entered the market. The guards were making their way through the crowd, headed right toward us.

We were trapped.

I tried to stop, but Tym wouldn’t let go of my hand and moved us forward.

“What about through one of the shops?” I suggested.

“The shop keepers would shoot us dead in a second. You ready?” Tym barked. We were feet from the edge of the market.

“Does it matter?”

When we reached the end of the block, I checked the streets signs. We were at 25th and E. Tym pulled me onto the sidewalk and we strolled in the opposite direction of the security guard, who was pressing his finger to his ear and talking.

“Head down,” Tym snarled.

I pulled my eyes from Tym’s flushed face and put my head down, nearly falling over my own feet, trying to keep up with his feverish pace. I peered up and to the right and sure enough, there was a big black-glass building.

Tym saw me notice and gave a sad nod. He then peeked behind at where the guard had been. “Shit,” he whispered.

“Stop!” the guard yelled.

Tym let go of my hand and shoved me forward. “Run!”

I tripped. My face hit the sidewalk. The winded knocked out of me, Tym helped me scramble to my feet. I stumbled to a run.

I could hear Tym running behind me, gasping for air. He surely could have run faster but stayed in back. His boots slapped the pavement with heavy clunks.

“Stop!” the guard shouted again.

There was a sharp and loud pop.

Tym wasn’t running behind me anymore.

I turned back. He was on the ground. I slowed, but he screamed at me.

“Run! Run! Run!” His glasses had broken from the fall and dangled from his face. He looked petrified. When I looked up, the security guard had a gun aimed right at my head. Our eyes locked for just a second before I turned away.

I ran.

Oh my God
,
I
just left Tym!

Go back!

Go back!

But I kept running.

Tym was screaming at me to keep going.

Like the biggest chicken shit in the world, I ran.

I heard another pop, and a sob erupted from my lips.

I expected to feel the bullet pierce my back but it didn’t. The sound was behind me.

Tym!

He wasn’t yelling for me to run anymore.

My feet didn’t slow. They moved without my consent. Panic and terror pushed me onward.

My arms pumped and with a burst of speed, I whipped around the corner onto Avenue F and ran toward the big black-glass building. It was a few blocks ahead of me and two blocks south. The canteen slapped my hip as I ran.

Up ahead, on 24th, rows and rows of cabs lined the curbs looking for work. I crossed the street in between them and ignored their honking.

Sobs clogged my throat.

On the opposite side of the street, people filled the sidewalk on the left, and piles of trash were on the right. I assimilated into the crowd without missing a step. I slowed to a fast walk and wiped my wet face with the back of my gloved hands.

Tym.

My heart beat so fast it hurt.

I shook violently but didn’t lessen my pace.

Oh my God
,
Tym.

He’d known. When he was telling me no matter what I heard to keep running. He knew. We were surrounded. That was it.

But the guard. He’d had a clear shot of me and he hadn’t taken it.

Why?

Why’d they let me go?

The sirens had stopped. I glanced around at both ends of the block, and no security cars were in sight.

The guards should be out in force to capture me. I was the whole reason they’d been in headquarters to begin with! It was my fault. Yet somehow, I’d gotten away and everyone else had gotten captured. Or killed.

Oh God
,
Tym.

And Sonya.

And Doc.

What a nightmare.

I wanted to wake up and unlive this moment, but reality forced me to keep moving.

I turned down 22nd.

As I approached, I realized that the big black building was a bank. I skirted past the bank guards on the opposite side of the street, then noticed a road bridge, which took traffic over a drainage ditch. There was a chain link fence around it, which I climbed over.

On the other side there was a steep cement slope that led to the dry ditch. Through the cloudy air, I saw a motorcycle under the bridge and what appeared to be Doc pacing back and forth.

As I approached, the clouds faded, and he saw me. His face rose, and then fell once he realized I was alone.

I think mine did the same when I noticed Sonya wasn’t there either.

Doc wrung his hands then combed them through his hair so hard I was sure he could have pulled some out. He was as pale as ice. “Tym?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I heard shots.”

His face fell further, if that was even possible. He choked back a sob and coughed at the effort. “I don’t know what happened to Sonya,” he said, and sniffed. His green eyes were bright headlights.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, not bothering to hide my tears. “It’s my fault.”

Doc shook his head. “We all knew what we were doing.”

“But if it wasn’t for me...” I protested.

“Stop, just stop it,” he said. He buried his face in his hands.

My heart moved without my mind’s permission. I crossed to him and swept his body into mine—wrapping my arms around his neck, pressing my body against his and touching my cheek to his face.

He melted into my embrace.

His arms encircled me and his hands wrapped around my back. He buried his face into my neck.

We held each other as he fought for control of his emotions. Even in the cool, cloudy air, his body was liquid lava.

When at last his breathing became slow and smooth, our faces parted.

We stared at each other, our lips practically touching.

My heart thumped so loudly in my chest I was certain he could feel it.

“Naya,” he whispered.

With effort, I pulled away and took a step back. He weighed my every move with hawklike precision, waiting for my reaction. His arms hung limply from his body and he was breathing hard.

It took a moment, but I realized I was breathing hard too.

He seemed just as scared of what I might do as I was.

I stood there.

Stupefied.

Eventually, after I didn’t have a mental breakdown, he broke eye contact and walked to the motorcycle. He sat on it, kicked up the stand and turned the key. “Come on.”

I climbed on behind him.

I didn’t know what to say.

“You’d better start calling me Ric,” he said, and he pulled the bike through the tunnel under the bridge and rode around to an archway leading back onto the boulevard.

We zipped along between cabs. I buried my face in his back.

I didn’t know where we were going.