Raging Sea (16 page)

“Inmate 114. Stand in the circle,” the voice says.

I rise, step into the circle, and hear the buzz.

“What, no sarcastic remark?” the voice asks.

“I’m a good dog,” I say,
with a very mean bite.

Once I hear the click, I start my practice, beginning and ending with the warrior pose, then lie down to calm my mind and focus on my breathing. It isn’t long before I hear the slot open. I don’t even look as the bowl scrapes across the concrete floor. I just stand and retrieve it—the same as every day, and I eat, slowly and methodically, like it’s my favorite meal in the world—a grandma slice from Neptune pie. This is the last meal I’m going to eat at Tempest.

I’ve timed it so well, I know when the slot will open and the bowl will go, so I’m finished when it happens. I hear the buzz, but this time I give the bowl a swift kick. It flips up into the air and lands flat against the door, then scurries back and forth, unable to fit through the hole. I watch it move to the left and then to the right as the guard outside does his best to alter the angle of the magnet to no avail. It falls with a clang when his machine powers down.

“Inmate 114. Stand in the circle,” the voice demands.

I nod and do as I’m told. There’s a buzz, then a clanking sound as the door is unlocked, and it slowly swings open.

Fight!
Fathom shouts in my ear. He’s joined by my father, and my mother, Bex, Shadow, Arcade, Lucas, Ghost, Luna, Rochelle, and Terrance—by everyone I have ever met, living or dead, all shouting for me to beat this guy’s ass. I leap forward and kick the door with everything I’ve got. It’s a gamble. I have never been able to figure out if the door will automatically lock when it closes, but it’s a chance I have to take. From the other side I hear an “oof,” and a cry of pain. The guard’s gun rattles to the ground as loud as a fireworks display and then settles, silent and waiting. The door slowly creeps open, and I step out into the hall.

His nose has exploded. There is blood all over it and a gash on his forehead leaking down his face. It’s Calvin, the soldier who is helping Amy experiment on me. His eyes meet mine as if he’s wondering whether I’ve got the guts to go for his pistol, and then they widen because he knows I do. We leap at the same time, scrambling for possession, but he’s faster, stronger—he’s not living in a box and eating gruel—so I slam my elbow into his nose with every ounce of aggression I can. He screeches. It’s enough for him to loosen his grip on the gun, and I snatch it away.

“Kid, you’re going to wind up shooting yourself with that,” the soldier warns, his hands up in front of his face.

I click off the safety, cock the hammer, and shake my head.

“My dad’s a cop in the Sixtieth Precinct. He taught me how to use this when I was fourteen. Get in the cell.”

“No.”

“Look at me, Calvin. I look pretty desperate, right?”

“You’ll never get out of here,” he warns as he surrenders to my demands.

“Just give me your keys.”

He unfastens his key ring from a chain around his waist. Among them is a keycard with a White Tower logo printed on its face.

“Aren’t you going to wish me luck?” I ask.

He laughs despite himself, and I slam the door shut. I wave the card over a sensor panel mounted on the wall and hear the buzz and clank of the lock. That was easier than I was expecting, and it takes me a second to wrap my head around the fact that I’m actually standing in the hall without a guard. I scan both directions. There are doors on either side of the hall, and each one has a sensor pad.

“Anybody in there?” I say as I swipe the card over the nearest door. I hear a whimper when it swings open and find a woman about my father’s age with chocolate-brown hair huddled on the floor.

“We’re leaving,” I say, then dart to the next door and repeat the routine. Soon, every door is open and a scrawny, half-starved person is taking his or her first tentative steps toward freedom. A forty-something man with a full beard creeps out of his cell. His eyes are wild, and he’s rocking back and forth with nervous energy. I can’t tell how long he’s been here, but one look at him tells me there’s a good chance he’s lost his mind. It dawns on me that none of these people might be capable of escaping. A few of them are too afraid to leave their cells. I give them all a second look to make sure Bex and my mom aren’t among them, then run to the end of the hall, find a door marked
STAIRS
, and push through it. Up a flight of steps I go with a gun in one hand and a keycard in the other. I careen through a second stairwell door and right into Amy on the other side. A tray of hypodermic needles she was holding flies into the air and comes crashing down around us.

“Hello.” I level the pistol at her face.

“I’m sorry,” she blubbers. Fat tears rolls down her cheeks so quickly, I wonder if they’ve been waiting for this moment since I arrived. “Don’t kill me.”

“Where are you keeping the others?”

“Lyric, you can’t—”

“I have friends and family in this camp, innocent people, Amy, and we’re going home.”

“Your father is right there,” she says, pointing to a door across the hall.

I push her against the wall and swipe the card on the sensor. The door opens with a heavy clank. Amy wasn’t lying. My father is on the floor. He’s lost some weight, but he’s not as bad as some of the people in this camp. He looks up at me, confused, like he’s not sure whether what he’s seeing is real or a delusion.

“Lyric?”

“Dad, can you walk?”

He tries but gives up with a groan.

I pull Amy into the room.

“Help me get him on his feet. You’re going to be his crutch!” I shout.

She does as she’s told.

“Lyric, this is crazy,” my father says.

“Crazy is all we’ve got,” I say, helping him into the hall.

“Now, where’s Bex?” I demand.

“Who?”

“Rebecca Conrad!” I shout.

“She’s upstairs.”

“With the Alpha?” I demand.

“No, they’re on the floor above that. They’re in the tank,” she explains.

“The tank? What the hell is that?” I ask.

Amy whimpers. “It’s on the top floor. I have nothing to do with it. I don’t work in that section.”

She points down the hall to another exit sign. I suddenly realize how hard it’s going to be to get everyone out. There must be at least sixty adults, maybe even more, all as sick and weak as my father. Who knows what kind of state the Alpha are in, and then there’s their children. I don’t even know where they’re keeping them. We’ll never find them on our own.

“You’re going to have to come with us,” I say to Amy. Her eyes drop down to the hypodermic needles on the floor. She’s considering going for one, jamming it into me, maybe knocking me out.

“Lady, I don’t know if I can kill you, but I know I can shoot you. If you don’t help us, I’ll put a bullet into something you need. Now go!”

She nods and, OMG—I’ve got a hostage.

I unlock all the cells while my father leans on Amy. I don’t even bother to look inside the rooms. I don’t have time. I tell myself the best I can do for them is to let them out.

“Are there soldiers on the other side of those doors?” I ask, pointing to the end of the hall.

She nods, but before we can make a plan, the door behind us flies open and one of the prisoners I released appears. He’s the bearded one with the wild eyes, and like all the others, he’s filthy beyond belief. White foam forms in the corners of his mouth like a rabid dog.

“I need a weapon,” he says to me.

“I think those needles have something bad in them,” I say, pointing to the floor. “Stick Amy here with one if she tries to get away.”

He scoops up a handful and nods.

“I can do that,” he offers.

We hurry down the hall, pounding on cell doors and telling everyone they are free. Along the way, my new sidekick tells me his name is Charles and he’s married to a Sirena named Melissa. They’ve got a daughter named Georgie, and he hasn’t seen either of them in two years.

When all the doors are unlocked, we shove Amy through the double doors, and as she said, a soldier is on the other side. He’s sitting in front of a bank of video screens eating a bologna sandwich. He couldn’t be more unprepared for us. He fumbles for his rifle leaning against a file cabinet, but I’ve got my pistol in his face.

“My friend needs to borrow your gun,” I say.

The guard frowns.

Charles pricks the side of Amy’s neck, and she sobs.

“Darren, just give it to him!” she shrieks.

Darren reaches over and timidly picks up his weapon, then hands it to Charles. Wild Eyes tosses his hypodermic needles into the corner, then swings the rifle around and aims it at Darren. I’m sure he’s going to shoot him, but instead he snatches the bologna sandwich and swallows the whole thing in three bites.

“Darren, we’re not going to kill you,” my father explains, eyeballing Charles as he talks. “We’re not going to kill anyone. We need to open all the doors. You’ll be able to go home afterward, you’ll be able to get another sandwich. But if you don’t help us, I’m going to give my daughter permission to shoot you and we’ll just figure it out on our own. I’ve seen this kind of security before. I know there’s a master lock that releases everything. Where is it?”

Darren gets up from his chair and crosses the room. There’s a metal box mounted on the wall. He opens it, inserts a key, then turns it with a click. Suddenly the air is alive with a piercing wail. Darren has sounded the alarm.

Charles slams the butt of the rifle against Darren’s head and knocks him out. Amy lets out a little yelp and then starts to whimper.

“Unlock the doors!” I shout at her.

“I don’t know how! I swear. I’m just a nurse!”

I have no idea if she’s being honest or not, but the alarm is freaking me out. We need to get away from here.

“All right, take me to my friend and then my mother!”

“I want my wife and daughter now!” Charles screams.

I lean down and snatch Darren’s keycard off his chain, then hand it to Charles.

“Find your kid,” I tell him. “Get her and all the children out of here. We’ll find your wife and meet you outside.”

He nods eagerly, then runs to the elevator, swiping the keycard to activate it. When the doors slide open, he lets out a disappointed groan. I turn just in time to hear a gunshot and see him fall backwards.

“Run!” I scream, and the three of us bolt through the doorway, only to find another flight of stairs. We climb them one by one, my father struggling but doing his personal best. Amy is really what’s slowing us down, with all her whimpering and shrieks.

“Prisoners have escaped their rooms on Level Three. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill,” a voice booms through speakers on the walls. “All unarmed associates are to fall back to their secure locations. Security associates, please load your sidearms and turn your radios to channel eight for further instructions.”

We’re almost up the steps when I hear a gunshot. The bullet ricochets off a wall, sending dust into my eyes. I howl, sure that the next one will hit me. There’s another shot, then another.

We duck through a door onto a floor that looks much like the one below, more cells lining both sides of the hall. I hear men shouting in the stairwell and have to make a terrible choice. I can’t open them all in time.

“Which one has my friend?” I demand, shoving the keycard into Amy’s trembling hands. She looks at it for a moment, then helps me take my father from her. She walks down the hall, and we follow closely until she stops at a door. She swipes the sensor, and the door opens. Standing in her own little yellow circle is my friend. When she sees me, her eyes fill with tears.

“You are so kick-ass, Lyric Walker,” she says.

“We have to hurry,” I beg. She lets my father wrap his arm around her shoulders, and together they do their best as they stagger down the hall. At the end is a door with an emergency alarm bar. Its alarm adds to the already piercing sirens. Still, we push through and slam the door behind us.

“Lock it, Amy,” my father demands.

Amy frowns but reaches into her pocket. She takes out her own set of keys, inserts one into the lock, and gives it a turn just as I hear banging on the other side.

“They’re going to try to shoot their way in here,” my father says, and no sooner does he warn us than we hear a loud bang. “This door is steel, so it will buy us a little time. We can’t waste it. We have to find your mother. You should leave me here.”

“We tried that once,” I say, and drag him down another hallway. There’s a turn, then another. It’s a maze.

“Where?” I demand, putting the gun to Amy’s head. I know she could help without me asking. I suppose it’s dumb of me to be irritated that she won’t take the initiative.

She points forward, and we run through another set of doors and find an elevator.

“Aren’t there stairs?” I ask.

Amy shakes her head. “The elevators are the only way into the tank.”

I’m dreading this, but I have no choice but to use it. I swipe the card on the sensor plate and wait until the elevator opens on our floor. I shove Amy in front of the elevator door in case a soldier with a happy trigger finger decides to shoot before looking. When it opens wide, Amy blubbers. We push her inside and step in ourselves. I search the buttons and find a
P
for penthouse. The doors close, and we slowly rise while a Muzak version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” plays. Yes, this place is truly that evil.

“The Alphas are in there,” Amy cries when the doors swing open. “Just let me go. You don’t need me.”

I can’t think of a reason to keep her, so I let her go, giving her a shove so that she falls to the floor of the elevator.

“You suck,” I say, because I’m all out of quips, then watch her disappear when the doors close.

When we turn, I find out why this place is called the tank. There are rows and rows of big water-filled tubes. Some are large enough to house many people. Inside them are Alpha, all in their undersea forms: gills and fins and tails and odd appendages. Scientists scurry about, taking readings and recording data. They don’t even realize we are here.