Z 2134 (35 page)

F
or several
minutes following their escape from the barn, the only sound was the clomping
of snow as Liam and Ana trudged numbly through the melting slush beneath the
midday sun.

Neither of them
said anything for what felt like forever, walking under the weight of their
collective guilt and shared grief.

A cool breeze
shook the pines above them, the sound soothing, calming her more with every
step. Once confident enough in her anger’s containment, she opened her mouth
and asked the questions she’d been holding inside.

“Why did you do
it?” she asked, ignoring the Network orb hovering above — if they didn’t want
citizens to know about her father’s being a part of The Underground, they’d
either sever the audio or switch the broadcast feed. “Why did you betray my
father?”

“Your dad was
one of the finest people I’ve ever known,” Liam said instantly, as if he’d been
waiting for the question. “That’s why I was angry when you assumed he was
guilty.”

Ana expected
Liam to say more, but he fell silent as they continued to slosh through the
snow and another minute’s worth of tension-tainted silence until she finally
turned to face him.

“No,” she said,
“you don’t get off that easy. You betrayed my father, Liam, and I’m on the
wrong side of The Wall because of you. You owe me an explanation!”

“No,” he said.
“I don’t. I owe you and your father my life, and you can both have it. That’s
fair, but that’s all you get.”

He kept walking,
trying to avoid more conversation.

What an
asshole!

“Fuck you, Liam.
If you can’t be straight with me, I’ll take my chances without you.” She took a
step toward him. “And I mean it. You know how stubborn my father is. Well, I’m
no different. So what’s it gonna be?”

He said nothing,
and for nearly a minute Ana almost believed Liam would call her bluff, then
turn around and head in the opposite direction.

Finally, and
without looking at her, he said, “City Watch targeted my girlfriend.”

Ana could tell
he wanted to cry, even though she knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he
would. “If I didn’t play ball, she would’ve been killed. I had no choice.”

“
You
had
a girlfriend?” Ana said, not meaning to fill her voice with surprise but unable
to stop.

“Yes.” He turned
his eyes.

“What was her
name?”

“Chelle, and she
was sweet, Ana, the nicest girl I ever met. You would’ve loved her. Anyway,
Chelle got pregnant. The pills didn’t work, and we didn’t have a voucher. The
baby was scheduled for termination, but we applied for an adoption waiver. But
she never intended to give it up, or if she did, it was only at first. Chelle
wanted to keep it. More than anything.”

“Why?” Ana
wondered out loud.

There were
plenty of citizens unable to have kids, who were eager to adopt a child, so long
as it wasn’t a Quarters kid. It didn’t make sense to risk prison, Watchers, or
ejection from The City, when you could get pregnant again with a voucher.

Ana asked, “Why
not give the child a safe home through adoption?”

Liam shrugged.
“I’m not exactly sure, since Chelle gave me 150 different answers, depending on
the day. She was insistent, and more stubborn than you, if you can believe it.”
His voice made another tiny crack, letting Ana know the worst was still inside.

“We didn’t know
what to do, but that was the first time I’d ever seriously considered leaving
The City. There’s a secret village in The Barrens where I thought we could go.”
He dipped his voice to a whisper to protect their discussion from the orbs.

“I tried to set
everything up, but passage doesn’t exactly happen overnight. Someone reported
Chelle, and City Watch came to get me. They knew I was Underground, and said if
I wasn’t willing to supply them with information, then they weren’t willing to
let Chelle go. They’d already arrested her, and they assured me they would
dispose of our baby, and in case that didn’t make me budge, they made it
perfectly clear how easy it was to eliminate Chelle.”

Ana gasped, “Oh
God!”

“Yeah,” Liam
sighed. “So I started helping — barely, but enough to keep our baby alive; a
few things here and there while Chelle was in custody, which ended up being a
lot longer than expected. I reported a few citizens whose arrest wouldn’t
affect the cause, and a couple of people who deserved it for one reason or
another.”

Ana didn’t like
Liam playing junior Watchman, judging who was deserving of punishment. She let
it go, knowing it was more important to hear the rest of his story while they
had a moment’s respite from the dangers of The Games.

“No matter how
much I gave, the Watchers wanted more, and then more after that. Then they
wanted something big…or else…” Liam paused, clearly not wanting to finish the
sentence.

Ana stared into
his silence, swallowed, then said, “So you gave them my father?”

“I had to,” he
admitted, shaking his head. “I didn’t want to. But I never thought any of this
would happen.” He gestured around him, as if piles of snow and naked trees were
murdered mothers and guilty fathers. “I didn’t think I gave them enough to go
on, especially since your father covered his tracks well. I’m sorry.”

Ana could feel
her face flushing red with anger. She said nothing for fear she would scream.

Liam spoke
instead.

“They didn’t
even act on the information for a while. So I kept my mouth shut, figuring he’d
avoided capture. I thought we’d gotten lucky. But I guess now that they decided
they’d take a different angle in bringing him down — murdering your mother and
setting him up for the crime.”

Ana closed her
eyes, trying to keep the tears inside. Liam was responsible for everything that
had happened to her family. She wanted to scream, hit him, puke, something.

But instead, she
listened as he continued his story.

“After they
locked your dad up, I thought it was over. But no, they came back. They wanted
more. But after what they did, I wasn’t willing. I ran roadblocks, working both
sides while trying to keep everyone safe. I did my best. But it wasn’t good
enough. City Watch terminated our baby, but by then Chelle was in her third
trimester, less than two months from delivery. It ruined her. Maybe they did
something else too, I don’t know, but when she came home, Chelle wasn’t the
same. She left me that day and never came back.”

Ana stared at
him, trying to reconcile her anger against his situation. He had done what he
had to do to protect his family, never knowing he’d be responsible for the
destruction of hers.

Liam wiped the
back of his hand under his right eye. “Can we keep walking? I’m freezing my
dick off standing here.”

“Of course,” Ana
said.

Liam continued,
“After that, City Watch made me their bitch. Even though Chelle was no longer
in custody, they threatened to arrest her and stack the charges, make her an
accessory to my Underground involvement. Publicly humiliate her and put her in
The Games. I had to go back, giving them just enough to satisfy but not enough
to blow The Underground apart. There’s thousands of people we’ve helped escape
City 6. Thousands whose lives depend on The Underground and the hidden
village.”

Liam stopped
mid-step, rubbing his hands across his folded arms. “So I kept giving them bits
and bits…until you were arrested. That was too much. I couldn’t allow you to
pay for my sins, not after what happened to your dad. So I got myself thrown
into The Games to protect you. To help you get to the end. And then I’ll get
myself killed, let you live, so you can go to City 7 and be with Jonah.”

Ana stared at
him, torn between guilt, anger, and gratitude until she was no longer sure what
she felt about Liam. She only knew that she couldn’t continue to hate him. He
did what he did and had his reasons. Now he was trying to make things right.

Even her father
could appreciate that.

Liam suddenly
gasped, startled as the trio of orbs above them descended all at once, swirling
around them with a speed and pattern Ana hadn’t seen before. Liam’s arm made a
fence of protection around her.

“What’s
happening?” Ana didn’t mean to whimper, even though she did.

Are they
going to attack? Has Liam just said too much, and now we’re both going to be
killed?

The three orbs
hovered in place, and then, in an instant, all fell to the ground at once,
their screens and lights going dark.

“What the hell?”
Liam said, inching toward the closest one on the ground. “They’re dead!”

Suddenly another
orb appeared, a black one, racing from the woods and flying right at them.

“Is that a
hunter orb?” Ana asked, seeing the weapon beneath its screen before she
finished asking the question.

“Down!” Liam
said, falling on top of her.

Ana braced for
the impact of an energy blast, certain that they, or at least Liam, was about
to be evaporated into ashes in an instant.

But no blast
came.

Instead, she
heard a humming sound, and then a voice that said, “Follow me!”

They looked up
to see the orb’s monitor showing a familiar face on its screen — Duncan!

Liam was running
before Ana realized what was happening, grabbing her hand and pulling her
behind him as he chased the orb into the forest. Behind them, they heard one of
the “dead” orbs coming back to life.

“Oh shit!” Liam
said, turning back as a blue beam of heat fired over their heads and smashed
into a large tree ahead of them, evaporating it in an instant.

“Fuck!” Liam
screamed, then ducked, running in a zigzag, following the black orb deeper into
the trees.

“You OK?” he
called back to Ana, who was racing as fast as she could to keep pace, her hand
still somehow in his.

“Barely,” she
said as Liam’s fingers circled tighter around her wrist.

Another blast,
this time closer, hit the ground behind them, sending up a chunk of earth.

“Duncan!” Liam
screamed, then dropped to the ground, pulling Ana down with him. He shoved her
head into the snow and peeked past her. Ana looked up and followed his gaze and
saw the orb they’d been following make a 180, spin through the air, then throw
crackling blue light through the forest.

There was a
deafening explosion, surprisingly loud considering the size of the orbs. Then
Duncan’s orb hovered back to a few feet above them. “It’s OK,” he reassured
from the monitor. “Hang tight, we’re almost there.”

To punctuate the
promise, the ground started moving about a hundred yards ahead. They felt the
rumble before they saw the spot — a large, circular metal plate, camouflaged
beneath the snow, spinning as it surfaced.

“Let’s get
going. We’re getting you two out of here,” Duncan called from the platform’s
middle. “And we don’t have very long.”

J
onah hid behind
the tree, panting, trying to decide if he should take a peek back.

He might’ve
outrun Egan, but probably not. Even if he had, the crazy fuck wasn’t likely to
give up so easily. Something was wrong with the asshole, keeping his daughter
and the others locked away, prisoners from society. Jonah could understand why
he was hiding from City 6, but why hide from the Village? Those people helped
one another and would certainly have considered him a hero. They could live
normal lives.

But no, Egan had
created a little enclave with nothing but himself, his wife (if they were
actually married), a dwarf, and three 10-year-old soldiers.

How long does
he hope to go on like this?

He wondered if
Egan was being overly paranoid or had just gone fucking nuts.

Whatever the
case, Jonah needed to put as much distance between himself and them as he
could, and as quickly as possible. But first, he had to lose Egan.

Or kill the man.

His back against
the bark, Jonah peered around the tree, watching Egan as he ran off in the
opposite direction. That would’ve been good if he weren’t screaming like an
idiot. He may as well have tied a string of raw meat to his neck, saying, “Here,
zombies, come and get me!”

“Jonah!” Egan’s
voice raged through The Barrens.

Shut. Up!
You’re gonna attract the zombies, you idiot!

“Come back here
and face your crimes, you coward!”

Jonah’s heart
pounded as Egan’s voice thundered. He dared another glance, casting his eyes 80
yards away or so, spying a path, winding up the ridge and away from the
underground station. If he could get there, he could lose Egan and then double
back the long way and catch the train tracks, and find his way to Ana, assuming
she was still alive or he could find her in The Games.