The Retreat (The After Trilogy Book 1) (31 page)

I
t quickly became apparent that Atlas couldn’t safely navigate the slope with Deimos over his shoulder. Phobos and Thrym became his shadows, helping Atlas to pass Deimos down the steeper sections and supporting what they could of his weight. They ran down the hill in a barely controlled stampede.

Blood pumped through her body, and Romy smiled as she sprinted. This was the best she’d felt in a week. Adrenaline coursed through her veins.

Romy could feel the ground under her feet, and was tethered to
herself
—not her shadow—for the first time since Houston squished the leech.

She stayed close in front of Atlas down the hill. It bothered her that they were leading the Mandate straight to the bunker.

But Atlas and Houston must have taken that into consideration, she realised.

It took them much less time to get down the hill.

Getting down the hill wasn’t the hard part.

The sparse bush was their enemy now—the lack of cover.

Atlas’s breath was laboured as he kept up a fast clip beside her. Sweat streamed from every part of him, drenching the tight black T-shirt he wore. He stared resolutely at the ground in front of him.

“How far?” Elara gasped, holding her side.

“Nearly there,” Houston called.

The doctor looked over this shoulder, back at the hill. And his face drained of blood. “Take cover!” he shouted, diving for Romy.

He threw himself in front of her, shoving her back as a gunshot ricocheted, embedding into a tree right where Houston’s head had been.

Romy stared at Houston, who was frantically searching her for . . . a wound? The others had scattered, but were torn between watching the doctor and trying to guess where the next gunshot would be.

“What are you all staring at?” Atlas bellowed. “Move!”

Elara screamed as she ran, dragged along by a merciless Phobos.

Houston darted into a thicker patch of bush and dropped to his knees, fumbling in his pocket.

“What are you doing?” Thrym puffed.

“Stand back!” Houston shouted. He clicked on the contraption he’d pulled from his pocket. Romy and the others watched as, with a loud groan, the forest floor opened beneath them.

Atlas signalled to Thrym. “Take him.” He deposited Deimos unceremoniously into Thrym’s arms. And then turned, sprinting onward through the bush.

Romy took a running step after him. A hand gripped her arm.

“No, Romy,” Houston said. “He’s leading them astray.”

The ground was still receding beneath them like a series of sliding doors gliding open, except the sliding doors were two-metre-deep slabs of rock. Layer after layer opened until Romy could no longer see into the depths. There were no stairs, no ladder, and the tunnel was completely vertical. How were they supposed to get down?

Atlas returned, wet, and relief coursed through her.

A whirring sound came from the vertical tunnel. A grating. Something within the tunnel was rising. How long did they have before the soldiers got down the hill? Could they see them from here? The bush had thickened once more, but they’d know Knot 27 disappeared somewhere in the area.

She squinted as a caged platform rose into view from the tunnel’s depths. Houston waved them all on board.

“Quickly.” Atlas gripped her elbow and she was forced to leap onto the platform, or be dragged.

She helped Thrym with Deimos, laying him down on the platform as the others jumped after her. There was another click, and they began their descent. The rocky layers closed above them as they dropped deep into the earth.

* * *

“M
y point is,” pressed Thrym, “that the Mandate knows exactly where we are.”

Atlas looked exhausted and Romy wanted to tell Thrym to stop. But her friend was right.

Maybe they’d fall for the trail that Atlas had created, leading to a river close by. Maybe they would follow the river, thinking the knot had jumped in.
Maybe.

“This bunker has five different exits. Regardless of whether they know where we are or not, they won’t be able to get
in
. Not even by dropping a bomb directly on top of us,” he replied.

Romy blinked the ringing away. It was just starting to come back. “So . . . we’re trapped.”

He swung his tired eyes to her. “They might find the one entrance, but there are four others that we can leave through. We’re not trapped.”

“But we’re not safe.” Thrym folded his arms. “You promised us safety.”

Atlas stood toe-to-toe with him, the taller of the two. “You would currently be dead without me. Compared to that, you are safe.”

Thrym snorted, refusing to budge.

Atlas didn’t break the stare. “Houston,” he barked.

“What can I do ya for, boss?”

Phobos snorted.

“I want Rosemary’s memory card out, now.”

“She doesn’t
like
being called Rosemary,” Thrym ground out.

Houston pushed his glasses upwards. “Well . . . ideally, I’d like to study—”

“Now!” Atlas shouted, breaking away from Thrym.

Atlas grabbed Romy’s arm and pulled her with him. She tore her arm away and jogged to keep up.

They’d descended for well over a hundred metres before arriving at the bottom where a horizontal tunnel greeted them. They’d walked for an hour, doing their best to drag Deimos along, before arriving in this cavern—the bunker, a multi-roomed facility carved from the stone.

There were rooms, beds, medical equipment, printers—everything they’d need to survive.

They entered into a room filled with screens and medi-tech. There were five screens, each showing a different picture of the bush.
Cameras
, she realised. Watching the entrances.

Atlas pushed her gently down onto the hospital bed beside Deimos’s bed.

“How long did this place take to make?” she asked.

“Ten years, five months, and twenty-seven days,” he answered without emotion.

Houston instructed her to lie down, and busied himself connecting her to what felt like a hundred different machines.

“We followed you here. We’ve held up our end of the bargain. Now talk,” she ordered. Her hands fisted in the sheets on the bed as she stared at Atlas.

The three conscious members of the knot had filtered into the room behind Romy. Elara had large rings around her eyes, and immediately collapsed into a chair. Phobos and Thrym both looked wired. Phobos paced in front of the door, while Thrym stood to attention, hands gripped too tightly behind his back.

Houston broke away from Romy to stab something into Deimos.

Everyone jumped as Deimos sat bolt upright, drawing in a huge breath.

“Gets me every time,” Houston chuckled.

Phobos crossed to his twin’s side. “We made it to the bunker, Dei. You’re okay. We’re safe.”

Atlas approached Romy’s bed. She shifted her feet to allow him space, and he sat. Weariness slumped his shoulders.

“I’m not sure where to start,” he said, running his hand through his hair.

“I think you should start in the middle, and then do flashbacks to the start,” Houston offered. “Or,
Or
! Start at the end and work back.”

Romy winced as the doctor yanked down the front of her top to slap some electrodes below her clavicle.

“That guy never shuts up,” Phobos muttered, now at Deimos’s side.

Atlas stared at Romy for a long, long moment. She was unsure what he was searching for. Something shifted in his gaze the longer he kept his eyes on her. His handsome face settled into softer lines.

He inhaled sharply. “From age eighteen, I’ve been commander of Orbito Four. I was placed there as a cadet at seventeen.”

Romy and the others stared at him. Thrym rounded to her side, dodging around a focused Houston. The doctor pushed a needle under her skin, and she barely felt it.
Commander of Orbito Four.

“How did you become commander?” she croaked.

He shifted uncomfortably. “I have some high-profile family members . . . and I’m not the commander anymore. Not after the events of the last few days.”

The knot sat in frozen silence as they absorbed that.

Elara licked her lips. “Wouldn’t your absence be noticed?”

“Orbito Four is full of. . . .” Atlas glanced at Romy. “All the people who have lost their knot.”

Her gaze fell to her fisted hands. What he meant was, Orbito Four was for soldiers who had lost their minds. Everyone knew what Orbito Four was for.

He shrugged. “They do not register my absence. Orbito Four is a research vessel first and foremost. The unstable soldiers are studied and we send teams out to Earth.”

“The research teams,” Romy said.

Atlas looked at her. “Yes,” he said. “Except the teams don’t research. They are orbito representatives at Mandate meetings. The teams are doctors, strategists, psychiatrists, engineers, geneticists. All those aboard Orbito Four are in the employ of the organisation I work for. It has taken us over a century to infiltrate to this extent. It was our greatest achievement.”

And he’d thrown this away to help them. Romy could see the sadness in his eyes; over ten years for his people to build this bunker, over a century to infiltrate a space station. Yet he’d chosen to help the knot and risk it all, at great danger to himself.

Understanding dawned. “That’s why you had the transmission dock set up. So Commander Cronus would think you were on the orbito!”

Atlas nodded.

Her eyes were unblinking. Atlas was commander of Orbito Four? This whole time?

Houston rolled Romy onto her side. She jerked as a long needle slid between the vertebrae in her neck.

“Be careful!” Atlas snapped.

Houston ignored him, going about his work.

“You’re setting up a rebellion,” Romy whispered.

The knot and Atlas stared at her in stunned silence. She winced as Houston’s hand jolted.

“Ha!” Houston exclaimed. “Told you she would figure it out, shit-for-brains.”

“Jesus, H, try to show some damn respect.”

“I’ve been with you for too long for that.”

Atlas mumbled, “I don’t think you showed any at the start either.”

Houston smiled. “And I probably won’t at the end.”

Something passed between the two—a camaraderie that ran deep.

Atlas stood from the hospital bed and turned to Romy. “Yes, as you have obviously worked it out, there are . . . efforts . . . to counter the Mandate’s rule.” His eyes landed on Romy. “Though it was created well before my
birth
.”

She knew he was born, not made. But an unwelcome thought occurred to her as he stressed the word “birth”. Did it matter to him that she was made?

“Our network is vast.”

That’s why he’s a little too tall.

“But how is that kind of thing faked?” Elara asked around a yawn.

Atlas’s eyes shifted to Houston. “Once we transport you to the main base I’ll tell you more about our organisation; our vision, our plans. But we work against the Mandate. That much you’ve probably guessed.”

Houston was flicking the machines to life. They started with a whir, and Romy closed her eyes. The ringing had grown to a bell clamour.

“What are you doing to me?” she asked.

“Removing your memory card; taking some snaps of your brain. Turn those on, will ya?” He pointed Thrym to the screens behind the bed.

Atlas continued. “When I first found you, Rosemary, I immediately noticed how . . . together you were. You’d potentially lost your knot. Yet, you were still caring for yourself, eating and drinking.”

Romy blushed. He made it sound like a selfish thing.

“It is nothing to be ashamed of,” he reassured her. “Just rare to the point of . . . you being the first I’d seen acting this way. And I spent ten years on Orbito Four.”

“You kept asking me questions,” she said through numb lips. “Asking me what I’d do if they were dead.”

“And you grew hysterical each time, but still didn’t stop functioning.”

Anger churned in her chest. Even then, he’d been testing her.

“But why did you leave when Thrym came? Why did you lead me to my friends?”

He avoided her gaze and didn’t answer.

The clamouring grew unbearable. She cried out, clutching her head.

“Shh, Ro, you’re okay.” Thrym hovered by her side.

“It hurts, Thrym,” she whimpered.

His eyes burned with unshed tears. “I know, I know. But I’m here. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

The right words. From the wrong person.

“I led you off-course at first, following a branch of the river.” Atlas’s voice broke through, rushing. “I could easily fake one space soldier’s death, and leave the rest of your knot to be found by the Mandate.”