Rise of the Elgen (39 page)

I formed a brilliant ball of electricity in my hand and threw it right at Hatch. Hatch, and everybody else, dove out of the way as the ball exploded against the thick glass, blasting a hole in it large enough for my mom’s car to drive through. When the smoke cleared, only Torstyn’s head popped up. I formed another ball in my hand.

“Hey, tough guy!” I shouted. “Want to play ball?”

He ran.

I noticed that the sound the rats were making had begun to change. I turned to see the rodents pressed up against the opposite side of the bowl. Thousands of them were on their backs, twitching. A loud alarm sounded. That’s when I noticed that the color of the bowl was also changing. The bowl was heating up. Even in my state, I could feel its heat. All around me, rats were dying by the thousands.
Am I doing this?
Then the rats began to burst into flames, like stuffed animals thrown into a furnace. A robotic female voice echoed across the bowl: “Danger. Evacuation protocol. Bowl meltdown imminent.”

I didn’t want to stick around to see what that might look like. I ran to the side of the bowl and jumped across a three-foot trough, magnetically sticking to the bowl’s metal side.

That’s when the power went out.

E
verything stilled. A dying alarm echoed across the bowl, and the only light came from me and the burning carcasses of rats. I slowly lowered myself down the metal side, below the grid. I was free, at least for the time being, but I wasn’t sure how to get from where I was to the mechanical closet.

Michael?

The voice sounded as if it had come from someone standing next to me. It sounded like Taylor’s. I looked around but couldn’t see anyone.
Taylor?

Good, you hear me!
she said.

I realized that I wasn’t hearing a voice but thoughts.

Where are you?
I asked.

I’m outside the building. Are you touching the bowl?

Yes.

Me too. You’re reading my thoughts.

Where is everyone?

In the jungle.

Is everyone okay? Is my mother?

She’s fine. Raúl took her and Tanner to our rendezvous point, where the bull got caught in the fence.

The power’s out. The bowl melted down.

I know. We blew up their water supply so the bowl would melt down.

Ostin’s idea?

Of course. How are you getting out?
Taylor asked.

The pipe. If I can find it. Is Ian around?

Yes.

Ask him how I get to the pipe.

Just a minute. Ian, how does Michael get to the pipe?

Tell him to climb down to the ground below and go right to the first door. That hallway will take him back to the air duct we crawled through. Did you hear that, Michael?

(It’s a little weird listening to someone’s thoughts when they’re listening to someone else speak, almost like an echo.)
Yes. I’ll lose contact with you when I drop down from the bowl. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.

We’ll see you there. I’ll see you soon.

I couldn’t help but smile.
I’ll see you soon.

I climbed down the sloping metal of the bowl as far as I could, which wasn’t far enough, as there was still a twelve-foot drop to the dark ground below—the floor barely illuminated by my glow. I let go, dropping hard to the concrete.

“My ankle,” I groaned. I looked down at my foot. My right foot had landed on a wrench and twisted as I hit. As I stood, a shock of pain shot through my ankle. It felt like a sprain. I limped along the wall until I found the door Ian had told me about and opened it to the corridor we’d escaped from. The hall had some illumination, as the battery-powered emergency lights had been activated. I looked both ways, then hobbled out into the hall.

I could hear running, heavy Elgen boots, but it was coming from somewhere else in the maze. I limped down the hall until I found
the vent cover. I climbed the water pipe next to it into the duct, then replaced the cover behind me.

My glow had increased tenfold, illuminating the duct almost as brightly as McKenna had. I crawled as quickly as I could until I felt the cold of the refrigeration room. I crawled slowly to the next vent and put my ear to it. I could hear movement. Then I saw the beam of a flashlight. There was someone in the mechanical room. I pulled back, afraid that they might notice my glow through the vent, but the sound didn’t stop. I crept up and looked out the vent again. There was a guard below. He was in uniform, standing near the pipe. I couldn’t tell if he was coming or going. He lifted the cap off the pipe and dropped his flashlight in, answering my question. He was escaping too.

I gave him time to disappear down the pipe, then I removed the vent cover. I looked around and then climbed out, lowering myself as much as possible, then dropped to the floor, trying to absorb as much of the fall as I could on my good foot. I hobbled over to the pipe and lifted the cap. I could hear the echo of the guard moving inside. I put both hands on the pipe and pulsed, knocking the guard out. I climbed into the pipe, then slid down, crawling out of the compound as fast as I could.

I
caught up to the unconscious guard just a hundred feet from the pipe’s entrance. I took his weapons, mostly so he couldn’t use them on me. He was carrying the standard Elgen weaponry and ordnance: a concussion grenade, a smoke grenade, a special ops knife, and a 9mm pistol. I took everything, including his flashlight. Then I cuffed his hands behind his back. I didn’t want him following me. I wondered how many other guards were taking the opportunity to escape.

I hurried on as fast as I could, wondering how the rest of the Electroclan were doing. They had just shut down the Elgen’s largest power plant and blackened out the country’s largest cities. I could only imagine how angry Hatch was. He would spare nothing to catch us before we left the country. He would be out for blood.

As I neared the end of the pipe, I saw something move. I pointed the flashlight toward the pipe’s mouth. A brightly colored snake was
slithering toward me. I didn’t know what kind of serpent it was, but Ostin always said that when it came to snakes the rule of thumb is “the more pretty, the more dangerous.” I think he said the same thing about girls.

Even though I could feel my power returning to its normal levels, whatever that meant these days, I was still carrying excess electricity from the grid. I produced a brilliant, softball-size lightning ball and tossed it at the snake. The ball exploded in a bright flash, and even though I missed the snake by at least a foot, the ball still burned it to charcoal. I crawled past it to the end of the pipe.

I shone my flashlight around but could see nothing, so I let myself down. My ankle was swelling now and too painful to put much pressure on. Using the knife I’d just confiscated I cut away part of my shirt, then wrapped my ankle with it. I looked back at the compound. I could hear shouting and an occasional gunshot but no machinery of any kind. There were no electric lights, but in the moonlight I could see a column of smoke rising from behind the power plant. My Electroclan had wreaked some serious chaos. I was so proud of them.

I knew it would be just a matter of time before the Elgen came looking for me outside the compound. I had to get to the meeting point as quickly as possible. Forgetting my ankle, I started to run and nearly fell. I didn’t want my friends to have to wait for me. But they were traveling with wounded as well, so I might not hold them back too much.

I hurried on, concealed in the darkness of the jungle but close enough to keep my eye on the fence for navigation. The last thing I wanted to do was get lost in the jungle. I was glad I had given Taylor the GPS. At least I didn’t have to worry about everyone else getting lost.

I had limped along for about a half hour when I heard the sound of approaching helicopters. As they got closer I heard another noise that I couldn’t distinguish until I saw the fire. The helicopters were burning the forest with flamethrowers.

In spite of my pain, I started moving faster, heading deeper into the jungle. But they kept coming as if they knew exactly where I
was.
How did they find me?
Then I remembered the el-readers, like the handheld one they had caught me with in the mechanical room. With the Elgen’s love for technology I had no doubt that they had developed bigger, more powerful el-readers that had a range of hundreds of yards.

The sound of the rotors just got louder, and it didn’t matter how deep I was in the jungle, how dark the night, or how thick the canopy, they were clearly following me. Then I heard the blast of the flames again, this time followed by the screeching of birds and monkeys. A black jaguar ran past me.

Thirty feet in front of me was an orange-yellow wall of fire, taking out everything in its path and clearing a smoldering swath in the jungle nearly twenty feet wide. Then I heard the blast of a flamethrower behind me as well.

Huddled in the trees, I couldn’t tell how many helicopters there were—at least three. They were flying in circles around me, cutting back the jungle with their flames—the circle closing in on me until the heat was intense enough that it was hard to breathe. They didn’t have to burn me—they could just suck all the oxygen out of the area and suffocate me. Smoke and fumes stung my eyes and throat and I was covered with ash. Within minutes they had left me in a small circle of trees, an island in an inferno of fire and soot. Then one of the helicopters broke off and hovered directly over me. A voice boomed out from its amplifier.

“You can’t escape, Vey. We have you surrounded. If you run we’ll open fire. You have five seconds to step out from the canopy or we’ll burn you alive.”

I said nothing, weighing my chances of running through the charred and burning swath to the jungle beyond without getting mowed down by their machine guns. But really, there was no point to it. They’d just find me again.

“One. Two . . .”

“Okay!” I shouted. “I’m coming out.”

I limped out into the smoldering black clearing, my arms raised, my body illuminated by their spotlights. There were four helicopters,
bobbing above me in the night like they were on strings. One was directly over me, maybe just fifty feet above the tops of the trees, another was to my left, and the other two were slowly circling, their spotlights and machine guns all pointing at me.

The voice said, “Get on your knees.”

I looked at the steaming ground, then slowly knelt down.

The helicopter to my left began to descend when it suddenly started to wobble. It yawed violently to one side, veering directly into the path of another helicopter. Their blades collided and both helicopters exploded.

Then the third and fourth helicopters dropped to the ground. I sprang to my feet and, ignoring the pain in my ankle, sprinted out of the way as one of the helicopters fell just twenty yards from where I had been kneeling and burst into flames.

I looked back only once to see the clearing completely engulfed in fire, then ran headlong into the jungle as fast as I could.

“Wherever you are, Tanner,” I said, “thank you.”