The Moon Dwellers (25 page)

Before leaving, I risk
a final glanc
e out the window, hoping I wo
n’t be affected by seein
g her again.
The thre
e
some reach
es
the fence and start
s
to
climb.
“No electricity?” I say
aloud.

A group of guard
s, at least six
,
I think, charge out into the yard.
They a
re headed straight for her, toting guns and nightsticks.

Time to go.

Roc i
s already in the hall, lo
oking back like he expects
me to
be right behind him.
I cross
the
room in two long strides.
We tear
down the hall.

If
the twelve flights of stairs have
a hundred and forty
-
fou
r steps, I think my feet touch
about thirty
-
six of them.
It i
s a wonder I
do
n’t trip and tumble all the way to the bottom, breaking every bone in
my body.
As long as my heart is intact, I do
n’t care.

We rush
past the sleeping deskman and into the cool night.

We freeze on the sidewalk when we see
the scene before us.

Chapter Nine

Adele

T
he explosion rocks
the still night air like a freight train crossing
a rickety wooden bridge.
I cli
ng to the fence for dear l
ife, as superheated air whooshes
past me with the force of
a stick of mining TNT
.

We a
re lucky.
Damn lucky.

The bomb blast
knocks
out a section of fence twenty yards to the left of us, leaving us relatively unscathed.
Had we chosen that part of
the fence to climb, we would’ve been hurtled to our deaths on the unforgiving rock slabs in the yard.

The good
news: The bomb has
also taken out every last guard in the ya
rd behind us.
Evidently they were
running along the fence when it h
it, trying to get to where we are climbing.
Their bodies a
re scattered throughout the yard, some quite a distance away from each other, tossed like ragdolls by th
e power of the explosion.
I don’t know if they are dead.
Frankly
,
I do
n’t care.

The bad news: The guards on the
other side of the fence were
a
s protected as we were.
They a
re still standing under us, still aiming their guns
at us.
Given the stress they a
re under—what with all their friends out cold on the other side
and bombs going off (okay, it i
s only one bomb
so far)—I am
afraid
they might just open fire
and ask questions later.

We a
re frozen in place, waiting to be torn apart by hot steel bullets.
All watc
hing the guards, waiting.
It i
s horrible.
An eternity in hell
wouldn’
t be worse than these ten seconds.
Or maybe it i
s only five.
I don’t know—all I know is it i
s bad.

The next bomb hit
s
a building across the stre
et from the Pen, directly beyond
o
ur section of
fence.
A maelstro
m
of glass and rock rubble rain
s
d
own upon the guards and they do
what any other well-trained officer
s
of a fine juvenile delinquent facility would do when three of their
guests
are trying to escape: they ru
n.
For good measure, they even thro
w down their guns to allow them
selves
to run faster.
I
’ve
never understood the expression
turned tail and r
a
n
until now
.
If the guar
ds had
tails, they
most definitely
would’ve
turned just before they took off.

For the first time I wonder where the hell the bombs a
re coming from.
When the first one hit the fence I was too shocked to think about the why or the who—plus I still had guns
aimed at my head
—but
after the second blast I start thinking.
My guesses are: 1
) sun dweller military
are
attacking our subchapter because we onl
y pay
80
percent
taxes instead of 82
percent
;
2) fed up, underpaid miners
have
gone crazy and
are
determined
to destroy everything in sight;
or 3) other Pen inmates have
managed to get th
eir hands on incendiaries and a
re shooting them
off from the roof.

Cole swi
ng
s
hi
s leg over the top and start
s
clim
bing down the other side.
I am
still frozen
in place
, trying to process all that has happened.
As I watch Cole shimmy down, I can
see the hole in the building in the ba
ckground.
The scorching hole i
s about three times his size, making him look extremely fragile and exposed all alone on his side of th
e fence.
Not that Tawni or I a
re any more protected.

I am glad Tawni is there, because I’m not thinking clearly.
I am
ready to continue my ascent to the top of
the fence, to finish what we
started, carry out the
original plan, when she brushes
past me, heading back down on the Pen
side of the fence.

“C
’mon, this way, Adele,” she says
.

Duh
.
Why fight gravi
ty and barbed wire when we can
go through
the fence
?
Giv
en a full fifth of the fence has been toppled, it will
be far easier to just walk straight out.

We mak
e it d
own without incident and climb
over the mangled
fence.
We
fight through a few
nests of barbed wire, but it i
sn
’t too difficult.
Just as we ge
t on the s
treet side of the fence, Cole is running toward
us
.
Alarms begi
n whooping in the background, coming from the Pen.
Jailbreak alarms.
For us.
The jailbreakers.

We run.
We run because we a
re worried about the
alarms and the guards that will
surely pour from the Pen as a result.
We should be
more worried about the bombs.

BOOM!

Hot stone shrapnel drills
me in the cheek, snappi
ng my head to the side.
I see
Cole and Tawni get
pelted
by similar flying projectiles, but
none of us so much as considers
stopping to check for serio
us injuries.
I think we all know that the only thing to do i
s keep running, to try to get as far away from the commercial d
istrict as possible.
Whoever is blasting away i
sn’t showing any signs of stopping anytime soon.

It is weird—the way the night can
be lit up so brightly and quickly and then just as quickly return to darkness, lit only by the soft glow of the streetligh
ts.
That’s the way our run goes
.
Flash!
And then dark.
BOOM!
And then silence.
It is eerie, like we a
re in a war or something, bombs exploding
all around us as we literally ru
n for our lives.

The thundering explosions fad
e
an
d the manufactured lightning gro
w
s distant as we escape
the city limits, moving into the sparsely populated suburbs.
None of us speak as we continue
running
, making our way around th
e huge stone columns that help
support the cavern roof
.
I’m not
sure how far or how long we run, or why we finally stop when we do
.
I think we all just stop
at the same time, like robots, perfectly synchronized
,
slipping behi
nd a high stone wall that rings
one of the houses
.

I’m
breathing heavily
—
Tawni
i
s
,
too
.
I’m
out of shape.
There i
sn’t much use for exer
cise inside the Pen.
My mind is racing; my side is hurting.
I feel
a twinge of
pain on my cheek and I flinch
.
Pr
essing a hand to my face, I feel
the sticky wetness of drying blood.
I gue
ss the rock hit me
harder than I thought.

“Do
you…think…we’re safe?” I pant
, direc
ting the question at whoever has
enough energy to listen.

Tawni hunches
over, trying to cat
ch her breath.
Evidently she is as out of shape as I am
.
Cole,
on the other hand, has
apparently kept up his fitn
ess while on the inside.
He does
n’t even seem winded.

“
I expect we’re al
l
right,” he says
, glancing to his right and left, as if they might be surrounding us any second.
“Especia
lly given everything else that’
s happening.”

Everything else.
If only
we knew what everything else is
.

“What do you think
i
s
happening?” I say
.

Cole laughs
.
“Uh, I think our subchapter i
s getting bombed to h
ell and back again.”
He laughs
again.

“No kidding,” I say
.
“I meant who do you think i
s doing it?
And why?”

“
Another one of my guys,” he says
.
“I paid a little extra to get a small diversion
to ensure we’
d get away.”

A day earlier, befo
re I knew him at all, I might
have
believe
d
h
im.
Not anymore.
“Lie,” I say
.
“Is now really the time for sar
casm?”
Despite myself, I smile
.
“Are we really free?”

Tawni’s
breath
is mostly back.
She ri
se
s
to her full height, once more towering over me.
“
For the moment we are,” she says
.
“As long as we don’t do anything stupid and get ourselves caught.”

I hope we don’t.
My mind is
clear
ing and already I am analyzing the situation.
It is like a puzzle.
There are certain tasks we need
to complete, in a cert
ain order, and wrapped around them all is the requirement that we ca
n’
t get caught.
The first task i
s obvious.