Metaltown (37 page)

A woman with short hair, wearing a shabby gray uniform, pushed a metal cart into the room from the hallway where he'd entered. Corn mash. The sweet smell of it had Colin's mouth watering and his stomach clenching.

He couldn't eat it. It was tainted food. Poisoned.
Testing
food. He steeled himself against his own demanding hunger.

Then the bug-eyed man came down the line with the glass bottle and a little glass dropper.

“No,” moaned a man three spaces down. “No, please. No more.”

The guards had all been dismissed but one, and he stood by the closed door. Just Bug-Eyes and the woman with the cart remained before them. Colin frantically searched the room for a weapon, but the countertops were mostly empty.

The sickest man on the end had to be told three times to stick out his tongue, which was crusty and almost black. The scientist squeezed the top of the dropper, and a clear liquid squirted out onto his tongue. He was given a bowl of corn mash. The blind man beside Gabe began to whimper.

“We can take that guard,” Colin whispered to Gabe, biting his pinky nail.

Gabe turned away.

Colin swore under his breath. He wished Ty were here. There wouldn't be a moment's hesitation. When it was time to fight, she had his back, no questions asked.

He leaned around Gabe to whisper to the blind man. “There's a door directly behind you, think you can find it?”

The man choked on a sob, but nodded.

“Hold it closed, okay? I'm going to get us out of here.”

The man hiccupped, then straightened his back.

“Are you crazy?” muttered Gabe.

Colin ignored him. “We're going to rush the guard on three.”

“I'm not helping you do anything.”

“I didn't know,” said Colin, watching the scientist move to the next prisoner. “I didn't know Jed was bad until after I came to your house. If I'd known … I wouldn't have done a lot of things, okay?”

Gabe didn't say anything.

“I'm sorry,” Colin said. And he was.

The tester was two men down.

“Gabe. I can't do this alone.”

Finally, almost imperceptibly, his old friend nodded.

When the tester reached the blind man, Colin burst from his seat and lunged across the table. The tester yelped, and as he stumbled back into the cart, Colin caught the glass jar, sloshing, slippery in his hands, and threw it with all his might at the guard, who was already drawing his defuser.

A loud clang, and a crash, then a scream as the tester knocked over the cart and the woman. The glass hit the guard in the face, spilling clear liquid and blood down his chin. Then Colin charged him, and the guard yelled out in pain as the back of his head bounced off the white wall.

They fell in a heap to the floor. He threw his weight on top of the struggling man, nearly tossed over the top of him. Desperately Colin tried to contain the guard's flailing arms. Fury and terror blended inside of him.
I will not die here.

“Get his weapon!” Colin shouted.

Gabe jumped on the guard's arm, a sickening crunch coming from beneath his knees. He snatched the shockgun just beyond the man's reach and lifted it, wide-eyed, unsure of what to do next. A pained groan ripped from the guard's mouth, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

“They're coming! Help me!” pleaded the blind man. He'd found the door, but it was already being shoved open. One of the other prisoners staggered toward him.

Colin ran back to the table, lifted one of the metal chairs, and with all his might threw it into the glass observation window at the back of the room. It cracked. An alarm sounded in the building—a high-pitched
whir, whir
—spiking his pulse.

He picked up the chair and threw it again. The woman who'd taken his baseline readings, along with the other scientists, were all running out the exit door. Gabe was right—beyond the partition he could see natural light, the gray haze of Metaltown. Freedom.

Behind him, the other inmates were struggling to hold back the guards on the opposite side of the door. The siren screamed through his temples.

“Hurry up!” shouted Gabe, voice cracking.

A roar started deep inside of him, flexing through every muscle in his legs, his back, his arms. He whipped the chair through the air, and when it slammed against the observation window, the glass finally,
finally,
broke.

“Come on!” Colin yelled. The shattered pane sliced into his fists as he punched the hole larger. Gabe was up, defuser in hand, while Colin looked back at the other inmates.

If just one abandoned the door, the whole thing would cave in.

Leave them,
screamed a voice inside of him.

He couldn't.

He bent down, running at the table, using his momentum to shove it forward. “Move!” he ordered, and the inmates scattered as he rammed the heavy wood against the door. It inched open, the silver barrel of a defuser sneaking through. The table would not block their way for long.

The guard with the broken arm had revived, and he took down the slowest, the worst of them, who could barely walk anyway. A low cry erupted from the poor man's throat, like the sound of a dying dog.

“Come on!” Colin grabbed the blind man's arm and propelled him forward.

The door slammed against the table. A second later it was wide enough to squeeze a body through, and a small guard scrambled over the table. An electric crackle snapped by Colin's ear. Gabe had gone around the testing room and opened the door, and the inmates dragged each other through it, ducking low behind a desk covered with papers and blinking screens.

The man behind Colin screamed, and with a clatter his body fell to the floor. Colin didn't look back. He put his hands on Gabe's back and shoved him through the exit door, into the light.

They were out.

Colin blinked to readjust his eyes. And saw the half circle of facility guards surrounding the door, all with their weapons drawn.

 

32

TY

It was nearing dusk when the alarm within the testing plant began to scream, the sound pumping electricity into Ty's body. She crouched low behind the crumbling wall on the opposite side of the street, knuckles scraping the bricks in her hurry to hide.

Colin.

The questions raced through her brain, as they had since she'd run into Martin and Zeke outside Lacey's. Was he alive? Had they started the testing yet?

Was she too late?

What had happened between them seemed so stupid now. They wouldn't survive Metaltown without each other. Lena Hampton wasn't big enough to get between them, and pigheaded McNulty was nothing more than a distraction. She kicked herself for not staying closer to Small Parts, watching for movement. She should have been with Colin when Hampton had unleashed his Bakerstown dogs. If she had, she could guarantee he wouldn't be stuck in food testing right now.

“They're moving, you see that?”

Keeping low, Ty sprinted to where Henry crouched beside Matchstick. There were six of them now—five who'd answered the call when she'd demanded they go after Colin. Matchstick, Martin, Zeke, Henry, and Chip—and only because the kid had refused to be left behind. Everybody else was either home, or too scared of Hampton's bullies.

Henry pointed at the front entrance of the old stone compound, where a line of guards in beige uniforms raced out and around the side of the building. They filtered through a gate in a high chain-link fence topped with a coil of barbed wire, and disappeared out of view.

“Let's take a look,” Ty said. “Matchstick?”

“Say no more.” A wicked grin lit his face. Gently, he laid his over-the-shoulder pack on the gravelly ground, and withdrew half a dozen faulty detonators from Small Parts. A few glass capsules followed, filled with a clear, thick liquid. He shoved a ball of twine at Henry, and lifted a match.

“I'm not sure this is such a good idea,” said Martin, easing back a step.

“It's just a little bump,” answered Matchstick. “Don't be such a baby.”

“Yeah,” said Chip, squatting beside them with wide eyes. “Don't be such a baby.”

Martin pushed him, and he fell into the dirt with a whining, “Hey!”

Before he could fight back, Ty had grabbed the kid around the ribs, and they were creeping away from the others in the direction they'd seen the guards go. Henry and Zeke were keeping watch intently, and both pointed silently toward the building.

She lifted her head, just above the wall. And her world stopped.

Before she knew what she was doing, she'd stood to her full height. Zeke tackled her, covering her mouth before she could yell for him to get off. The rocks on the ground jabbed into her back.

Colin was there. Colin, and that boy from Bakerstown, and a few other men. Their backs were against the wall of the building, and they were surrounded by armed guards.
Execution.
The word horrified her, but that's what it looked like. It looked like they were about to be murdered. From the distance she couldn't tell if their guns held bullets or shocking prongs, but she wasn't about to wait to find out.

She screamed against Zeke's hand, bucking her hips when his knees pinned her shoulders down. She fought him as hard as she could, eventually heaving him off to the side. When she was up, she grabbed a rock and hurled it back toward Matchstick. It fell close to Henry, who looked back. He was too far away to hear her call to hurry.

“Go!” she told Chip. “Tell them we can't wait!” He sprinted away.

The fear was thick inside of her. Thick and alive and venomous.

“We've got to distract them!” She grabbed another handful of rocks, gathering them in a pouch she created from the front of her sweater. The others followed her lead.

“Be quick, then get down,” said Martin.

She didn't wait for his approval. She stood and launched a stone at the nearest guard. It fell short by five feet, but it was enough to distract him. He lowered his gun and stared back at the wall, but she'd already ducked behind it again, breathing hard.

Zeke fired next. Then Martin. Ty found a hole in the wall and watched their confusion. Three more guards spun toward them, and a few others nearby turned to see what they were looking at.
Over here!
Her shoulder burned as she flung the next rock.

One of the guards saw her. He pointed their way and shouted something she couldn't make out. She followed his gaze up, to a guard tower that reached above the fence. The last sight she saw before ducking down was the man within raising his arm.

A
zing,
then a
crack,
as a bullet embedded into the wall. A tight cry escaped her throat.

“They're shooting at us?” Zeke asked breathlessly. “No. Uh-uh.”

Chip came running toward them, head low.

“What'd he say?” she asked quickly.

“He says get down.” Chip covered his ears as another shot smacked into the wall. Zeke and Martin glanced at each other, jaws slack. They didn't ask questions, they just flattened down against the ground.

A moment later the entrance of the food testing plant exploded in a deafening crash of rocks and grinding metal. Ty grabbed Chip and pulled his little body beside hers, one hand covering the ear on her good side, the other cupped around his head. Small bits of debris rained down from the sky. Thick white smoke filled the air, heavy with concrete dust, tangy with the scent of nitroglycerine.

She blinked and saw Martin, his face covered with a thin sheet of white powder. He was trying to tell her something, but only mouthing the words. She opened her jaw wide, forcing her ears to pop. Again, and she could hear the shouts from the facility.

Another explosion, this time closer. She held Chip so tightly she was sure his ribs would break. The ground quaked. Part of the wall collapsed over them, a brick falling right between her shoulder blades.

When the ground settled, she glanced over Chip, then Martin and Zeke, finding them all powdered white like ghosts.

Then she was up. With a heave she lifted herself onto the wall, swung her legs over, and jumped down. There were guards scattered across the street, their beige uniforms gray with concrete dust. Some were standing and coughing. Others were on their hands and knees. One was out cold or dead, face down on the ground to her right. No one moved in the tower above her.

“Colin!” she shouted. “Colin!”

She ran through the smoke to where she'd last seen him, hoping that Matchstick wouldn't set off another explosion until she was clear. She pushed forward blindly, hand on her knife, knowing it would do little good against the force of a bullet but feeling more competent with the hard steel in her hand.

Then her hands found a wall and she pushed herself along it, beyond fear, beyond doubt. Her good eye was burning, her bad, too blurry to make anything out. Her lashes were matted with salt and muck, but through them she could see just enough to make out a shadowed figure in her path.

“Colin!”

He was leaning against the wall, hacking, his clothes and skin covered with powder. A thin line of blood trickled down the back of his neck.

At a sprint, she threw herself into him. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, then lowered to her waist, and when he squeezed back, all the cold, broken parts inside of her mended, and she felt more whole than she ever had in her life.

“You stupid bastard.” She choked out the words. “You stupid idiot. I hate you.” She realized suddenly what a fool she was being, and shoved him back.

A small grin quirked at the corner of his mouth as he bounced off the wall.

“About time you showed up,” he said. She snorted, her throat tied in knots.

“What was
that
?” coughed the boy from Bakerstown. He'd linked arms with another man, an older man who looked to have withstood the blast all right. Another emerged from the smoke behind them, and began hobbling quickly away from the building.