One boy, Mills, seemed to resent the fact that I was younger than he was, and female. I figured I would have to take him down, hard, in the very near future. So there were perks to being a leader.

  Another boy, Levi, was a sweet fourteen-year-old who shouldn’t be here or allowed around weapons. He seemed to live in his own world—sort of loping along, talking or singing quietly to himself, occasionally pointing out a pretty bird or a beaver or something. Of course I’d taken him aside and had the “Be silent or we all die” talk, but its effect was already wearing off.

  Bunny was tall, tough, and strong, and I was happy to have her. But she had a hair-trigger temper and saw danger everywhere. More than once I’d had to knock her rifle down because she’d been about to shoot at, like, a woodpecker or something. “Guns are loud, Bunny,” I’d hissed, and she’d nodded curtly at me like, Yeah, but, woodpecker!

  To top it off, there was Jolie, and I only knew her name because she had spelled it into my hand. Jolie was deaf. I hadn’t realized it for a while because she looked totally badass. Her head was shaved except for a long blue Mohawk running from her forehead to the nape of her neck. Her ears, nose, and one eyebrow were pierced, and her collar covered most of a tattoo on her neck. It was only after she had ignored my whispered commands a couple times that I had grabbed her shoulder. She’d whirled on me, knife in hand, black eyes blazing.

  “Oh, she’s deaf,” said Levi cheerfully, and I’d stared at him. Then at her.

  “What?” I said.

  “She’s deaf,” Levi repeated. “She can’t hear anything.”

  “Then why is she an em-effing soldier?” I exclaimed.

  Angrily, Jolie grabbed my hand, palm up, and spelled into it, B-E-C-A-U-S-E-I-C-A-N-K-I-C-K-Y-O-U-R-A-S-S.

  Which was how I found out that she could read lips. Then she spelled her name into my palm, and I nodded, trying not to worry that she could be a liability for the team.

  Finally there was Nate. He’d been the leader of the kids’ resistance long before Cassie had gotten involved with him. I knew he was loyal, brave, and a good fighter. But he was no Tim. At least he wasn’t actively trying to get us all killed. So, yay?

  19

  IT WAS A HUGE RELIEF to reach hard, rocky ground on the other side of the hill. Snow makes it impossible to leave no trace; it provides an extremely clear map of where you’ve been and where you’re going. We’d tried to obliterate our trail as much as possible, so instead of six soldiers carefully picking their way through the woods, it looked like a large drunken bear had careened his way down to a lower altitude.

  When we reached an outcropping, I agreed to a fifteen-minute rest. Catching Jolie’s eye, I mimicked sitting down, then flashed my five fingers three times. She nodded and swung her rifle off her shoulder. I felt a little bitter about being saddled with someone I had to take care of.

  Nate scanned the area ahead of us with his binoculars. The trees at this altitude hid us well. Soon we’d have only tall valley grass with the occasional woody copse to camouflage us.

  Silently Nate handed me the binoculars and pointed. I looked.

  “That’s a cell,” I whispered. “In that valley, between those two little mountains.”

  “Maybe five, six miles away?” Nate said softly.

  I calculated the distance. “Yeah,” I said. “We can get there by sundown if there’s a way through to the valley.”

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. Jolie pointed downward. “Yes, we have to go down,” I said. She shook her head, then took my hand, pointed my finger, and aimed it. I squinted, seeing nothing and feeling impatient. Jolie lifted the binoculars to my eyes and guided them.

  As I peered through the lenses, Jolie took my hand and spelled, R-O-A-D.

  “Road?” I moved the binoculars in tiny increments, and suddenly it came into view. I looked up. “An old road!” I said, and she nodded without smiling.

  “Nate, look. There’s a road and it looks like it isn’t used anymore. If we stick to one side it’ll speed us up without too much risk.”

  “Let’s do it,” he said, and I turned and held up my hand for a high five. Jolie smacked it maybe a little too hard.

  As we headed single file down the rocky face, I wondered if Jolie being deaf meant her other senses were better—like better vision because she relied on it, or maybe she was really sensitive to vibrations or something.

  Occasionally we slid downward when we lost our foothold, leaving a fairly visible path, but at least no one could tell there were six of us.

  Hiking along the road was a thousand times easier than going up or coming down the mountain, and though we felt a bit exposed, someone would have to be almost directly overhead before they saw us. I turned around and saw Jolie looking at me. I gave her a thumbs-up and motioned at the road, and again she nodded without smiling.

  After a few minutes we saw some old, rusted train tracks that ran by the side of the road. From back when cells were connected? Had cells ever been connected? Is this something I should report back to Strepp? It’s hard to know what was important enough to relay back to camp. Mostly, our mission was to scout east and report back on any and all United troops, resources, movements, blah, blah, blah. Know your enemy, I guess.

  “Oh, whoa,” Bunny said, and I almost bumped into her when she slowed. We’d just come around a bend and now saw an opening in the side of the mountain. The train tracks disappeared into a dark so black it’s like where light went to die.

  Cautiously we walked toward it, our hands on our guns. As we approached, bats flew out of the dense darkness, and my skin crawled when several small shapes raced out of the tunnel along the metal tracks: rats.

  Oh, God, I thought, looking around. To our left the road wound uphill, probably curling around the mountain on one side and then weaving down on the other side. I’d assumed there was a direct route to the cell we’d seen. I’d been wrong.

  “If this is a tunnel going all the way through the mountain,” I said, making sure that Jolie could see me, “it will save us several hours of hiking.”

  “If it’s a mine shaft, we could all die,” said Mills flatly.

  “Yes, thank you, Mills,” I said.

  “I vote no,” Mills said.

  “You seem to be laboring under the impression that this squad is a democracy,” I said icily. “It isn’t. I’m in charge, I make the decisions, and when I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. Don’t hold your breath.”

  Mills’s face colored; he was pissed and I knew we’d have to have a showdown soon. But not yet.

  Instead, I gritted my teeth, all leaderly, and said, “Weapons ready!” Then I went first into the deep blackness. ’Cause that’s what a leader does.

  20

  CASSIE

  WE WERE IN AN… ATTIC? A huge attic that went on and on, though it was hard to tell because of all the stuff everywhere. I couldn’t see any windows. In the middle where the room came to a peak it was maybe six feet high. Tim couldn’t stand up straight.

  Ms. Strepp was silent as Tim and I tried to understand what we were looking at. The whole place was just full. Full of stacks of dusty cardboard boxes, some of them split and spilling their contents. There were old beat-up trunks, with boxes and sacks of paper piled on them. I saw a table covered with maybe thirty small, weird machines. Suitcases were stacked sideways against the knee-high wall. Old newspapers, bundled and tied with string, were layered high enough to make a maze barely wide enough to walk through. All of it was covered with a thick layer of dust.

  “This is what’s left of the world,” Ms. Strepp said, sounding sad and angry at the same time.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, trying to read a headline on a newspaper.

  “The world still exists,” she clarified. “But not its history. People have forgotten. People have buried it. People have lost themselves.” She turned to Tim and me and said, “You two are going to help them find it again.”

  “How?” I asked.

  Ms. Strepp moved through the attic, weaving between stacks and piles, almost disappearing behind mounds of paper. “Something happened that made our country like it is today,” she said as I followed her. “Today with the cells and separation and Provosts. The rumor is that it wasn’t always like that—but no one knows why it changed, or how or by whom. Or no one admits to what happened pre-System. These bags”—she gestured at this stunning amount of crap—“are full of… artifacts. Things from the past. Forbidden things, things that would get us all killed if anyone knew they were here. Forbidden knowledge.”

  That sounded a little interesting. Sure, I could spend an hour or two every day looking through this stuff.

  “You two are going to sift through all of this,” Ms. Strepp went on. “Make notes. Put together the pieces of the puzzle. You two are going to come up with the lesson that will save the world. Save humanity. Save all of us. Before it’s too late.”

  So, no pressure, I thought. “Okay,” I said. “But what should we do with the rest of our time?”

  Ms. Strepp made the dreaded face—the frown, the narrowed eyes. “You won’t have any other time,” she told me coldly. “This is your job, your only job. And it’s every bit as important—perhaps more important—than being in battle.”

  Tim made an incoherent grunt. She ignored him. “You will report here every day,” she said. “You will make sure the hidden door is completely shut. When you’re up here, you will pull up the rope ladder and keep the trapdoor shut and bolted.” She pointed to a large, rusty hasp bolted to the floor. “And every day, I want a progress report. What you’ve done. Every single item catalogued. Each piece of everything examined. We need answers, and you’re going to provide them.”

  Giving us each a final glare, she nodded and began going down the rope ladder. When she got to the bottom she called, “Pull up the ladder!”

  Tim pulled it up and I closed the trapdoor, struggling to get the bolt through the old hasp.

  Thinking that she might still be able to hear us, might still be listening, I whispered, “Holy shit,” and he nodded.

  He was hunched over, looking incredibly uncomfortable, and I pushed a desk chair over to him. He sat down and put his chin in his hands. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Shit.”

  21

  BECCA

  BEING A LEADER DOESN’T MEAN you have to like bats. Or rats. Or pitch-darkness. It means you have to keep going even if you’re afraid of that stuff. Within a few minutes of entering the tunnel we’d lost any light coming in from outside. All of us had miniature flashlights on one shoulder. Their light was small, but at least we could see each other.

  “Single file,” I ordered quietly, shining my light on my face so Jolie could see me. “This place looks empty, but we don’t know. Be on guard, keep your weapons ready, and pay attention to your surroundings.”

  My team mumbled and nodded. I put a hand to one ear and whispered, “Excuse me?”

  That got me a chorus of whispered Yes, ma’ams.

  I led slowly, trailing my left hand along the dirt wall, trying to see what was in front of me. Thick wooden beams braced against the dirt of the sides and ceiling. They looked way too puny to hold up a mountain. This tunnel had never been used by cars—solely for trains. A few withered weeds grew unenthusiastically between the rotting wooden railroad ties, and every so often we disturbed more bats or rats that squeaked and hurried past us.

  How big was this mountain? A mile across? Two? Three? Did this tunnel even go all the way through? Maybe it had only been for trams to come in, get ore, and carry it out. How long should I go before giving up?

  Lost in thought, I put my foot down and took a split second to realize it hadn’t landed on anything. Suddenly I was sliding downward into a bottomless hole.

  A yelp of surprise escaped my mouth as I fell, scrabbling wildly at the dirt wall. No no no no my brain screamed as my fingers clawed for something, anything to hold on to. My right hand instinctively closed around… a root! I threw my left hand up to grab it and hung there for a moment, my mouth dry with terror and my brain firing incoherently. The root was already giving, pulling out of the dirt. Slowly I tilted my head downward—the narrow beam of light couldn’t pierce the darkness enough for me to see if there was any bottom.

  I looked up and blinked as several flashlights shone in my face. I could see my team clustered around the opening above.

  Nate began feeding a rope down to me—he’d already tied a loop in the end to make it easier to hold on to. Letting go of my root felt like risking death. My heart pounded and a clammy sweat beaded my forehead.

  “Do it!” Nate said firmly.

  It was what I needed to break the vise of fear holding me. I grabbed the rope with one hand, then the other, letting go of the root that had saved my life. Then Nate, Bunny, and Jolie began to pull me up.

  By the time I clambered gracelessly out of the pit, I’d had time to be less afraid and more embarrassed. Some leader I was. I crawled over to the wall and sat against it for a minute, my chest heaving.

  “You okay?” Nate asked.

  I nodded and stood up. Unclipping my canteen from my pack, I took a long swig, then wiped my mouth on my sleeve and said, “Okay, everyone. Avoid that hole.”

  How’s that for good leaderly advice?

  22

  WE WENT AROUND THE PIT on the other side and headed deeper into the mountain’s guts. I decided to give it five more minutes and if no end was in sight then, I would call it quits.

  But after five minutes, I just couldn’t give up. We went on for six minutes, seven, eight…

  “Look!” Levi said. “Light!”

  I sighed with relief once we were out of that damn tunnel. It was nearly dusk—not much daylight left. The train tracks curved off into the woods and I decided to stick with the road.

  “This is stupid,” Mills said. “We should be up high somewhere, hiding and watching.”

  “Yeah?” Bunny said. With her smooth dark skin and her kinky hair cut close to her head, she looked beautiful—and deadly. I was glad she hadn’t been at the Crazy House; I wouldn’t have wanted to fight her. “How long should we stay hidden, somewhere up high? Days? I’d rather be a moving target than a sitting target.”

  Thank you, Bunny, I thought.

  This abandoned road led to an abandoned… cell? But there was no boundary fence around it, and no signs saying B-25-600 or whatever—no designation at all.

  We just walked right into it. The buildings were empty, with broken windows and some doors hanging open. We walked past a doctor’s office, its sign dangling by one chain: DR. ELIZABETH MARKS, GENERAL AND FAMILY MEDICINE. Then a grocery co-op, its windows broken and its shelves bare: MCDUFF’S GROCERY.

  “Where’s… where’s all the United signs?” I asked, looking around. “How come it’s Dr. Marks, and not the United Health Center? And McDuff’s Grocery, not the United Food Co-op?”

  “That is weird,” Bunny said.

  “At home it was United everything,” Levi agreed.

  It was like that all the way down the empty, overgrown street. Only people’s names. Like this place had never been a cell at all.

  Turning to Jolie, I made the gesture of taking a picture.

  Jolie nodded and took out her camera. She was aiming it at one of the weird signs when ping! It got shot out of her hand!

  “Take cover!” I yelled, and the team scattered instantly, their training making them obey without thinking. Five seconds later I couldn’t see any of them. Nate and I dove over a broken windowsill into a “café.” I tapped the comm on my collar. “Report?” I asked. “Anyone see the sniper? Anyone hurt?”

  “I’m with Jolie, and we’re fine,” Levi answered. “Her hand is okay.”

  “I’m good,” said Mills. “But I can’t see shit.”

  “Why is there a sniper protecting this old cell?” Bunny asked the obvious question.

  “No idea,” I said. After a moment I tapped my comm again. “Bunny? Peek out a bit.”

  “Roger that.” Seconds later we heard gunfire.

  I tapped my comm again. “Bunny?” I asked urgently. There was no answer.

  23

  “THAT SUCKED,” BUNNY FINALLY SAID, sounding breathless.

  Mills radioed in. “I’m gonna see if I can spot the bastard.”

  “Copy,” I said.

  More gunshots. “Goddamnit.” Mills sounded mad.

  “Jolie’s going to take a look,” Levi radioed.

  “Copy,” I said again, tensely.

  And… gunshots.

  “She’s okay,” Levi reported a few seconds later. “But we can’t tell where the guy is, or if there’s more than one.”

  I looked at Nate. “We need to get out of here. We’re advance scouts. We need to keep advancing.” I was the leader; I needed to fix this. Make a decision, Becca, I told myself.

  “You know—” Nate started.

  “Shut up,” I said. “Let me think.”

  I pinched my lip, trying to work through different scenarios. In one of them, only three of us died. God.

  “Look,” Nate said, and I glanced up, narrowing my eyes at him in a way that made most people back down. Nate being Nate, he barreled on. “We can triangulate where the sniper is. Or figure out if there’s more than one. With geometry.”

  Oh, good. One of my favorite words.

  Still, a good leader has to listen—sometimes.

  Nate took my lack of glare to be a sign to continue, and he explained what he meant. He explained it twice before I understood.

  “Okay. Is that going to work?” I asked.

  Nate shrugged. “Sitting here isn’t going to work,” he said. “We know that much.” Keeping out of sight, Nate and I talked very quietly, coming up with a plan that I sketched out in the dirt. Not for the first time I wished Tim was here. He would have figured this out by now with no stinking geometry.

 

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