“We’re clear,” she says.
“The ship’s on the main level,” Luke says. “It’s in some kind of shuttle bay out back. They’ve probably been messing with it, so we won’t know if it’ll still fly until we get to it.”
“What about Tom?” Adam asks.
“He’s down in the engine room, like always. Sublevel five.”
“Okay,” Adam says, “here’s what we do. We head to the ship together. Once we clear the guards, it’ll only take one of us to make sure the ship’ll fly. The other two will go get Tom, and we’ll all reconvene here. If the shuttle’s operational, great. If not, we’ll just have to figure something else out.”
Charlie and Luke nod.
“So who’s getting us airborne? Chuck?”
“Hell no,” she says. “You’re not leaving me on mechanic duty while you two get to play hero. Make Luke do it.”
“Fine,” Adam says wearily. “Luke?”
“Sure,” he says.
Adam nods, his brow furrowed in thought; Luke and Charlie look at him expectantly, like they’re waiting for instructions.
“We’ve been stockpiling all the supplies we could get our hands on. There should be more than enough,” Luke offers after a moment.
“What about her?” Charlie gestures to me with her thumb.
“Terra will stay here with the supplies. Don’t worry,” he says, turning to me, “we’ll be back for you.”
“No way. I’m coming with you.” I stand up, keeping one hand on the boxes behind me for support.
“It’s too dangerous,” Adam says, shaking his head.
“Besides, look at you. You can barely stand. You’ll only slow us down,” adds Charlie.
I ignore her and steady myself enough to stand next to Adam. “What do I have to worry about?” I say to him dismissively. “You always save me anyway.”
He sighs resignedly and laces his fingers through mine.
“Well, that was cheesy,” Charlie says.
“Look, I’m not staying here,” I tell her. “What if they find me? Then all your collective rescue attempts would have been in vain. Nobody wants that, right?” I crack a grin.
Charlie rolls her eyes. “You’d better keep up.”
“Here, take this.” Luke hands me a gun. “Keep it on stun mode. It’s better than nothing.”
I wince as I take it, remembering the immediate incapacitation my own run-in with the stunner caused. “To say the least,” I say.
Luke smiles.
“All right. Let’s move out,” Adam says.
With a movement so smooth it seems choreographed, the three of them head toward the exit. I sidestep them, blocking the door just as Adam reaches for the handle.
“Wait,” I say quickly. “Just wait. Somebody needs to explain to me exactly what is going on.”
“Terra.” Adam’s eyes blaze. “There’s no time.”
“In the past day, I have been arrested, drugged, psychologically tortured, punched in the face, knocked out, tied up, stun gunned, and dumped with the equivalent of a Skyline train’s worth of emotional cargo. I am still coming to grips with the fact that you all even exist in the first place. And, all things considered, I think I’ve been pretty damn understanding.”
Charlie sighs dramatically. I scowl at her.
“Just make it snappy,” she says.
“Okay, listen.” Adam speaks quickly, pulling me in close. “According to what they’re saying, it sounds like the Tribunal is trying to use our technology to convert this skycity.”
“So I heard. What does that mean?”
“Well, the skycities are in stasis, right? They stay in the same location.”
“Of course,” I reply. “Otherwise how would anybody know where to find them?”
“Exactly. Conversion means the city would become mobile. It would have all of the capabilities of an aircraft—able to go pretty much anywhere.”
I try to imagine an engine capable of moving an entire city. The thought is daunting, but I don’t see why it’s so horrifying to them.
“It’s not just that though.” Adam hesitates. “You know how because of the UV filter technology already in place, the environment inside each city is self-contained?”
“Um, sure?” I say, though it’s obvious I’m anything but.
“This far above the cloud layer, the temperature and oxygen levels have to be regulated,” Luke explains, “which is why the cities are fully encapsulated.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, remembering my lessons from school. “And that’s also why shuttles have to enter and exit from underneath.”
“Right,” Adam continues. “So it wouldn’t take much for a city like this to be able to sustain itself without any oxygen on the outside at all.”
I look at him blankly. “But… when would that ever happen? Under what circumstances would that possibly be necessary?”
Adam looks at Luke and Charlie uneasily. Pity and regret flash between the three of them, and the answer comes to me.
Space.
There’s no oxygen in space.
“The Tribunal wants to convert Korbyllis into a spaceship,” I say, my voice hollow.
“I know how it sounds,” Luke says quickly. “But this technology has clearly been in development for a long time. Since before the skycities were even launched, we think.”
I recall the observation complex in the biodome. The environment down there, almost entirely self-sustaining, has been able to thrive for hundreds of years. It only now occurs to me that it might very well have been a precursor to the skycities themselves.
“Skyfall,” I say.
“What?”
“The Skyfall,” I repeat. “The city of Intheria. Nobody knew what could possibly have caused an entire skycity to fall, to simply plummet to the ground without warning. What if… what if it’s because they were trying to convert it? What if it’s because something went wrong? I mean, Intheria was supposedly the stronghold for all scientific research. It makes sense that it would have been the first to undergo conversion.”
“And not only did the conversion fail,” Adam suggests, “but suddenly there was the plague to contend with, too. Which explains why it took the Tribunal centuries to recreate the technology and get back on track. And why they want us so badly.”
“Exactly,” I say. “This planet is dying. The Tribunal instills that concept in our minds before we’re even old enough to walk. They’re always stressing how few resources there are left, how important it is for us to scav, to recycle, to maintain. If we had the ability to leave, to start over…”
“You can’t possibly think it’s a good thing that we’ve been kept here, forced to work on this,” Charlie says, crossing her arms angrily.
“Don’t be absurd, Charlie. She wasn’t saying that.” Adam squeezes my hand.
“I’m horrified the Tribunal has acted this way. I’ve gotten a crash course in what they’re capable of,” I say darkly, pointing to my bruised cheek. “But you have to admit, the idea itself is kind of remarkable.”
Charlie purses her lips.
“Why all the secrecy though?” I continue. “If we’re going to be leaving Earth for literally greener pastures, wouldn’t it be more efficient to have us all—skydweller, terrestrial, whoever—working toward the same goal? Helping with the conversion? Why all the stealth, the hush money?”
I see the sadness in Adam’s eyes as he watches me work through this new information, and the answer clicks into place.
Oh.
“They’re going to leave us here, aren’t they?” My eyes widen in horror as I consider how long we would be able to survive without the skycities. They provide everything. We’d be goners within months.
A laugh bubbles up in my chest—a completely inappropriate response that I’m unable to contain. By the time it reaches my mouth, however, it comes out as a sob.
“We’re dead.”
Adam pulls me into him. “It’s not going to happen,” he says. “We won’t let it.”
“We’ve stalled their progress best we can, provided them with fake algorithms, false information,” Luke says. “They won’t be able to finish the conversion without us.”
I nod mechanically against Adam’s chest.
Charlie clears her throat. “I know this must be difficult for you to process,” she says to me, her tone surprisingly gentle. “But we really have to go.”
“Ready?” Adam asks.
I nod again, though I don’t think there’s any way I could have been ready for this. With the stunner gripped tightly in one hand, and the other hand crushing Adam’s fingers, I follow them out.
Chapter 26
We creep out into the hallway: Charlie in front, Adam at my side, Luke bringing up the rear. I keep the stunner up at chest level as we move through the halls, my finger next to the trigger. We’re almost to the stairwell when Charlie suddenly curses.
“Get back!” she whispers.
We duck into a nearby restroom just as two guardsmen pass by. I listen at the door until their footsteps fade.
Luke cracks the door open and peeks into the hall. “Just a patrol.”
We dash out of the bathroom and into an empty stairwell. Muting our footsteps as much as we can, we descend to the main floor.
“There.” Charlie points to the frosted panel inlaid in the stairwell exit door. There is a dark silhouette over the glass; a guardsman is standing on the other side.
With a wave of his arm, Adam uses his FX to knock the guard’s head back against the wall. He slumps to the floor, and Luke opens the door to drag him into the stairwell.
“Done this before, have you?” I say quietly to Adam.
Grinning, he tucks the guard’s gun into his waistband, and we exit onto the main floor.
Despite the Capital Building’s spacious, open layout, we fail to encounter any other guards or workers as we work our way toward the back of the building. The lack of activity unnerves me; the Tribunal has to know something is amiss. Even if they haven’t picked up on Charlie and Luke’s absence, the trail of incapacitated guardsmen that Adam left in the wake of his escape must have raised some alarms. So where’s the siren? The mayhem? The search party?
“This is too easy,” I whisper as we rush across yet another empty room.
“Maybe luck’s finally on our side,” Luke says. “This door should take us outside.”
“All right, remember the plan,” Adam says, halting our steps. “We need to be faster than fast. We subdue the guards, get Luke access to the ship, then make a break for Tom. Chuck, you know where he’ll be?”
Charlie nods. “What about the supplies?”
“They are not our first priority. But if we’re able to get back to them, we’ll grab what we can. Then we’re gone.”
I don’t ask where it is we’ll be going. I don’t think I want to know.
We exit into a deserted courtyard to the side of the building. The dusky light hitting the Capital Building casts long shadows over us, concealing our movement.
“That’s the shuttle bay there,” says Luke, pointing to the back of what looks like a massive metal box missing its lid. “Entrance is on the other side. They keep two guards on duty at all times, so be ready.”
“We’ll take them from both sides,” Adam directs. “Luke, Charlie, head up from the left. We’ll go right.” He looks at me seriously. “Stay behind me.”
Adam and I sneak up the side of the building, our backs flat against the wall.
He looks at me and lifts his eyebrows. I nod.
Quick as lightning, he darts around the corner. I take a deep breath before following him, only to crash straight into his back.
“What are you—,” I start to whisper, cutting myself off as soon as I look up. Ten guardsmen, guns at the ready, stand ahead of us. With a jerk of his gun, one of the guards summons us forward, lining the four of us up in front of them. I see a flash of silver behind their heads: the ship is at the back of the shuttle bay.
I stay tucked halfway behind Adam, holding my gun against my chest as if trying to bully my heartbeat into slowing down.
“So, in retrospect,” Luke says as he and Charlie line up beside us, “I take back what I said about luck.”
“We were wondering when you’d get here,” I hear from the throng of guardsmen.
The voice makes my heart jump into my throat. The guardsmen part as Wolfe walks out of the bay entrance. “What an unexpected treat. Hello again, little bird.”
My entire body seizes up and I grab Adam’s arm with my free hand. He tenses and lets out a snarl, but it takes me a second to realize it’s not on my account.
A step in front of Wolfe is a blond man with a slim build. He stares at the ground, but I don’t need to see his face to know who he is.
“Tom!” cries Charlie.
Her outburst causes an immediate reaction from the guards. All ten guns turn toward her, locking in on their target. She and Luke simultaneously pull hidden guns from their waistbands and point them back at the firing squad. I follow suit, aiming my weapon with shaking hands, while Adam raises his gun and targets Wolfe instead.
Tom looks up, and his eyes meet mine.
Cobalt. Indigo. Sapphire. Cerulean.
That bluest blue—Adam’s blue—staring right at me.
“Oh good,” Tom says tiredly as his eyes lock onto Adam. “You’re alive.”
“Hey, Tommy,” Adam says. “Good to see you, too, brother.”
“I’d drop those weapons if I were you,” Wolfe says.
“And I’d let him go if I wanted to stay alive,” Adam says darkly.
“Tsk, so hostile. What happened to all that ‘We come in peace’ stuff?”
Adam clicks the stunner safety on the side of his gun into the off position.
“Ah-ah-ah, I wouldn’t be so hasty if I were you.” Wolfe turns to the side to give us a clear view of the gun pressed between Tom’s shoulder blades.
“Now here’s how this is going to work,” Wolfe says. “You’re all going to come with us quietly, and we’re not going to kill any of you.”
Charlie lets out a single laugh.
“It’s a good deal,” Wolfe says. “I suggest you take it.”
“You won’t kill us,” she says. “You need us.”
“It’s true, Prime Whitlock did make it clear that we were not to use any fatal means of detaining you. Of course, Prime Whitlock isn’t here, is she? And she certainly wouldn’t be able to blame me if one of you was, say, putting the lives of these good men at risk.”
“You’re bluffing,” she replies steadily.
Wolfe laughs. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. I guess you’ll have to ask yourself if that’s a risk you’re willing to take.” Tom inhales sharply as Wolfe presses the barrel deeper into his back.