SLAM (16 page)

Some of the fear that’s been grinding her down
for hours relents a touch. Just because she can send a message
doesn’t mean Leaf’s in a position to receive it, but it’s better
than nothing.

And now if they need to, they can get hold of
base, as well. If it comes down to it, maybe she can hide the
precious datapad and send ARC the GPS coordinates. It gives them
another chance, slim though it might be. She hastily taps a message
out, praying that he’ll get to it in time. They have twenty minutes
until 0015, when she told him to blow the gatehouse. If he doesn’t
get back to them, and the gatehouse doesn’t blow, they’re going to
have to hope the rain alone will provide enough cover.

It won’t – she knows it won’t.
There’s no way they’ll get over the Wall unseen. They’ll just have
to pray they can outrun the inevitable pursuit. “We’ve got twenty
minutes, if Leaf’s on time.”
If Leaf’s
alive, if Leaf’s sticking to the plan.

With a decisive nod, Abial shuts the window
and pads around the room for a few minutes before coming back with
a metal waste can. Tiredness making her clumsy, she gathers some
loose fibrepaper and stuffs it into the can, then sets it on the
floor in front of Sam’s knocking knees. “If we’re going to be
running, we have to get him warm. Otherwise, we won’t make
it.”

Serena nods her thanks and rubs her hand up
and down Sam’s shaking side. “You’re a bit special, hey?” She
doesn’t expect an answer; he’s practically unconscious, lolling
against her side without the energy or will to hold himself
up.

Abial lights the fibrepaper with a flourish, a
stone and metal nail sparking into the paper so that it catches
almost immediately. The heat washes out from the can, seeping into
the air, and Sam almost falls on top of it, practically hugging the
flames, getting as close as he can. It’s not the safest decision;
soldiers could see the light, or Google forbid be using infrared to
look for them. But he’s barely able to move under his own power,
and thawing him out might help. All things considered, she thinks
it’s worth the risk.

The skills he has aren’t normal, and keeping
him alive still has to be a priority.

She narrows her eyes at the comm unit on her
wrist, willing it to light up and let them know the plan is on
target. It doesn’t beep, though, no matter how hard she stares at
it.

Nuke, Leaf. What are you
doing?

The sound of yelling splits the night then,
and she stiffens her spine. But it peters off, only to rise up
again, joined by splashing boots that get louder and louder. Serena
and Abial gasp in unison, the same thought passing between them:
They’ve been made, they must have been ...

Her fingers close around her zap almost of
their own accord, and she depresses the safety, aiming it with a
steady hand across Sam’s body. There are five shots in a full power
cell. That’s three for the soldiers when they break down the door.
Then, if there’s still too many to get past, one shot for Sam, and
one left for her. Abial has her own, after all. Teeth clenched so
hard she thinks they might shatter, she deliberately pulls her
power from her core, ready to shield against any attack that
comes.

But the boots pass. The shouting fades until
it becomes indistinguishable from the rain.

Her spine melts like hot candy and she almost
slides right off the chair, startling Sam out of his half-slumber.
He jumps, and she settles him with her hand on his arm, stuffing
the zap into her waistband, safety back on. Shuffling closer, she
leans her legs against him, letting the welcome warmth permeate
muscles that feel like old chewing gum, and they wait in silence;
apparently no one has enough energy to talk.

Her comm remains stubbornly, indifferently
dark.

The explosion, when it comes, is so far away
that it sounds like a drawn-out thud, but alarms soon start
shrilling through the air in fits and starts. A shudder of relief
washes over her, and her shoulders drop from their hunched, nervous
position. They wait in tense silence until they hear the
distinctive sound of military boots stomping at high speed past
their hideout in eerie synchronicity.

She manages a ghost of a grin, and
holds her hands over the flame for a brief second more, then looks
at Abial.
Time to go
.

At Abial’s nod, she grudgingly straightens,
muscles protesting in varying levels of distress, and holds a hand
down to Sam to help him up. He takes it, and as she assists him to
stand, Abial uses telekinesis like a lid over the waste basket
until the fire goes out. Serena knows she’ll need all her Talent to
throw Abial and Sam up the Wall – she has to save it for that.
Satisfied that their presence has been suitably obscured, she
ushers Sam toward the door and gives herself a shake, taking a deep
breath to psych herself up.

Last push. We can do this...
right?

She meets Abial’s eyes across Sam’s shaking
body. They are strangely reassuring, in that moment, and for the
first time, Serena feels like things might really be fixable
between them. Remembering the datapad, she shrugs it off her
shoulder and passes it to Abial with a mental image of the
importance of the little device – the information, the Institute.
Everything they’ve ever wanted to know. Abial’s eyes widen, and she
pulls it on with a determined nod. Then she cracks the
door.

“Can you run for a minute,
cowboy?” Serena wonders what Abial would say if he thought he
couldn’t.
What would I say? Could we carry
him? Nuke, I don’t even know.

He twists his mouth and hugs his elbows,
shrugging. “I can try.”

It has to be good enough. They don’t have any
time to waste. Soldiers should be headed for the City Hall, but it
won’t take them long to realize it’s an isolated incident. They
might even figure out that it’s a distraction. Abial holds a hand
up, signaling them to wait as she peers into the darkness. A moment
passes and then they slip out of the relative safety of the
building and streak toward the Wall. Serena’s feet slip and slide
on the soaked solar panels, and she relies on her power to keep her
footing, thrusting minute pegs of it into the floor to anchor her
as she sprints. Sam is faring badly, feet slithering out from under
him, and basically skating as she drags him along.

When she lets him go, he coasts for a moment
and crashes to a halt against the Wall, collapsing into a heap.
There’s no time to care for him; she has to be ready, the timing
has to be perfect. Abial has dropped behind, slowing her steps to
giant, forceful stomps as Serena skids to a halt, telekinetically
mooring herself to the floor. She casts power around her calves and
down deep into the ground, to brace herself as she twists around.
The move hurts like running straight into a brick wall, and even
her telepathically reinforced joints screech in angry protest. But
Abial is already stepping up and into Serena's waiting hands, the
leap fitting into her rhythmic strides so well that she can’t help
the grin that spreads over her face as she thrusts upward. Just
like they’ve practiced. Abial’s slipper is soaked through, clammy
and rubbery for the brief moment it presses down on Serena’s palm
before she’s catapulted into the air with inhuman force. She pushes
her power out and down at the same time as Serena pushes, and they
force their Talents to work against one another, and Abial flies
high into the air, toward the far-away top of the Wall.

When she begins to slow, Serena shoves again,
ramming power up toward her partner, and Abial’s now distant body
is jerked upward again. Serena holds her breath for a moment,
knowing the strain is visible on her face, but she can’t stop.
Abial’s out of sight, blocked from her view by the darkness and the
rain, and Serena can’t relax until it’s clear that her partner has
landed.

If she comes plummeting back toward the
ground, it means they’ve failed. And if that happens, Serena
herself – and Sam – will be stuck on this side of the wall, without
an ally.

A long minute passes, and nothing
moves in the murk around them. Finally, Serena blows out a breath.
She must have made it, or she’d be falling by now. Thank nuke for
years of practice.
Now, just to get the
kid over, and myself. Piece of cake.

She tries to swallow, her mouth suddenly dry.
It comes out as a gulp.

Sam looks like he’s been poleaxed, his mouth
hanging open even as he huddles against the imposing hugeness of
the Wall. Serena grins at him half-heartedly, completely unable to
manage anything more encouraging, and cups her hands, lacing her
fingers together. She can’t even imagine trying to face this jump
without telekinesis to fall back on.

“Your turn.”

He sidles away, spine pressed tightly against
the edifice behind him. “No, no, no. My power doesn’t work like
that. I’ll fall.” His voice trembles, sounding like he’s close to
tears, and his eyes are huge, the whites clearly visible rimming
the irises.

For a second she has to fight the urge to slap
him, the hours of tension pushing her to the boiling point. She
pushes the feeling away determinedly, getting a hold of herself.
“If you stay here, you die. If you jump, Abial will catch you. When
we came up with this plan, we didn’t know you had any gift at all,
so believe me, we could do this with a chair if we had to. And you,
at least, have hands. So you’ll be able to grab her. She’s waiting
on the top, okay? We’ve done this before.”

She tries to look encouraging, but it’s
somewhat ruined by the nervous glances around them, eyes sidling
away from his in order to check their surroundings.

“Look, we’ve gotta do this. You do
it now, or I go and leave you here. Your call.” She’s not sure she
actually would, but if it came down to it, she’s not convinced that
they’d be able to get out any other way, anyhow. It’s this way or
nothing. There’s no way she’s strong enough to jump with
herself
and
Sam.

As it is, this will be the highest jump she’s
ever made, and the second person always has a much harder job with
no one to boost her. She’s going to have to throw telekinetic
‘arms’ up, Talent jump as high as she can, and hope Abial grabs her
in time.

At least if I fall, I should have
enough gift left to catch myself. Maybe.

But none of that will be any good if Sam won’t
go first.

A choking sound forces its way out of his
throat, but he presses his bloodless lips together and manages a
small nod. “Okay. Okay. You swear you won’t drop me?”

“On my life.” She’s deadly serious, and he
closes his eyes for a long second before steadying himself on the
Wall, hand splayed, and lifting his leg. She cups her hands and he
wedges his foot into it.

“I’m gonna throw you on three.
Abial’s waiting, and she’s gonna pull you the rest of the way.
Stretch your arms up as far as you can. If you miss, I’ll catch you
on your way down. Our powers
do
work this way, okay? Trust us.”

Trust us. This is the only plan we
have.

“Okay.” His face looks like he’s been carved
from marble, and he swallows jerkily. “I guess I’d rather splat on
the ground than end up back on a surgery gurney, anyway.” He
touches his head like he’s remembering something.

Poor kid, how long did they have
you for? How did you get away?
She opens
her mouth, about to ask, and then remembers their situation and
crouches down farther, squeezing his foot.

“Ready? One, two, three.” On the word ‘three,’
she throws him upward with all her might, physical and telekinetic.
He flies fast, his arms flailing above him like he hopes he’ll be
able to grab something now. But the Wall is smooth and
impenetrable, with nothing to hook fingers on to. Unclimbable. If
he touches it, all he’ll succeed in doing is slowing his crazy
flight.

She’s staring at his squirming body so
intently that she doesn’t even blink with the rain pattering
against her eyes. Suddenly, from behind her, a yell breaks the
ominous non-silence of the water hitting the ground.

She pulls her power up into a shield, tensing
in anticipation of shots tearing her protections to shreds. She
can’t jump until she knows Abial has him, because she’ll have to
catch him if he starts falling. She crouches on the balls of her
feet, ready to run from the soldiers that must be
coming.

The seconds last forever.

Her back waits and waits for the thumping
impact of zapshots. Will she have any warning? Or will they just
tear her apart?

Finally he slows, clearly about to reverse
direction. No shots from behind yet. She’s itching to look, but
can’t. Instead, she prepares for him to fall – for the shattering,
body- smashing fall that she’ll have to keep from ending in blood.
And then, just as he seems like he must be about to plunge back to
the ground, he jerks a little, and is suddenly yanked skyward, out
of sight.

She looks around, eyes scanning for the
soldiers. But there’s no one there. Either she imagined the shout,
or it wasn’t focused on her. Thank Google.

She swallows, and her eyes fly back up at the
imposing construction. Eighty-eight metres of solid white, slick
and running with water. It’s huge. She could swear it’s never been
this big before, but Abial and Sam are already at the top, and she
has to try. A small part of her thinks that if she doesn’t make it
up there, she might be able to get out of the City through the
gates, and meet them in the slums.