Chapter 44
"Yes."
"Is he armed?"
"No. He looks more like a tech." He turned back. "He looks like he's sleeping."
"He's about to get the wake-up call of his life," Ostin said. "What else do you see?"
"The right side of the house is nothing, just a kitchen and bathroom. On the other side there's the end of that pipe with a bunch of lights and switches."
"How thick is the pipe?"
"About three feet."
"I mean the walls of the pipe."
"Oh." He looked closer. "Maybe an inch and a half."
Ostin thought this over. "Dynamite blows down, so we should put the packs on top of the pipe, but it's much more powerful in a confined s.p.a.ce." He did the math in his head. "For maximum explosive effect we need to stack the packs inside the loop."
Ian and Wade pulled a coil of fuse out of each pack, and McKenna wrapped the ends of the fuse around her hand.
Ostin looked at McKenna. "You don't ever just spontaneously ignite, do you?"
"Only a few times a day," McKenna said, staring ahead.
"Really?"
She looked at him. "No."
"Sorry," he said.
Wade turned to Ostin. "Now?"
"Do it," Ostin said. "Don't forget to check the fuses."
"I won't." Wade slid his arms through both packs, then McKenna and Ostin covered them with brush.
"Good luck," Ostin said.
Wade crawled on his stomach toward the pipe, moving about as fast as a turtle. In the darkness he looked like a slow-moving bush.
"Can't he go faster?" McKenna said.
"He's just being careful," Ostin said. "We've got one shot at this."
When Wade reached the pipe he looked back at Ian, who gave him the thumbs-up. Wade checked the fuse connections again, then placed the packs in between the looped pipe and crawled back, though much faster. The four of them dropped back into the jungle, McKenna feeding the fuse out from her hand as they went.
"How's our sleeper?" Ostin asked Ian.
"Still snoozing."
"Good. Have you found Michael?"
"No. He's not in the cells anymore."
"What's going on in the bowl?"
Ian strained. "It's hard to see with all the electrical interference. But something must be going on. There's a large crowd gathered up in the observation deck. The chute's extended, so it must be feeding time." He shook his head. "That's strange, I don't see a bull. Let me see what's in the feeding station." His expression changed. He quickly grabbed the barbwire. "We've got to blow it. Now!"
"What's going on?" Ostin asked. "What's in the feeding station?"
"Michael."
The conveyor belt moved me slowly toward the open door leading to the bowl. As I approached the opening I was overcome by the shrill scream of a million rats echoing in the metal collector-far louder and more horrific than the sound of the rats in the hallway. I can't describe the terror of that sound, though I had once heard something like it. A few years earlier Ostin played for me something he had downloaded from the Internet-a radio program claiming that Russian scientists conducting deep-hole drilling experiments in Siberia had recorded the sounds of h.e.l.l. The recording was proven a hoax, but if there was such a place as h.e.l.l, it couldn't be worse than this-the shrieking of a million hungry rats climbing on top of one another to eat me alive. Even the stench was torture, and I started gagging.
The belt moved slowly, like a roller coaster about to take its first plunge. My heart raced, fueled by adrenaline. My mind and my body felt numb. I wished I could pa.s.s out.
Then I felt something else. As my feet cleared the door, they began to tingle. Powerfully. As I slowly pa.s.sed through the opening in the wall the sensation moved up my body. What's happening to me? To my surprise I was able to lift my feet. It felt like energy was was.h.i.+ng over me. Of course it did. I was being carried out over the largest electrical field ever created-millions of kilowatts were bombarding my body. The RESAT that had been sucking the energy from me couldn't possibly handle that much current. A thousand of them couldn't.
As my chest approached the opening I was able to sit up and look down. My feet were beginning to glow. What I saw past my feet, at the bottom of the chute, was horrific. Until you see the rats you can't possibly imagine how terrible they look, bubbling like a vast sea of lava. At the sight of me, the rats' ravenous, collective shriek grew in intensity, and I could see a wave of rodents swelling toward me.
My thighs were now glowing. I strained at my bonds. I couldn't break free yet, but I was still absorbing electricity. My head pa.s.sed through the opening, and I was looking directly down the chute, lying on the metal rollers. This is where I was supposed to roll down. I waited for it, but I didn't move. I wasn't sliding anywhere. Of course I wasn't. These were metal rollers and I was magnetic again, only a hundred times more.
The RESAT started to make a high-pitched squeal, then popped as it blew, a thin wisp of smoke rising from it. My skin was now as bright as an incandescent lightbulb. I was just lying there on the chute, a few yards past the trap door, immovable and growing brighter by the second, brighter than I had ever experienced. I looked down at my feet, but they were now too bright to look at. I wasn't melting through my bands; my bands were just gone. I lifted the RESAT from my chest and threw it down at the grid.
I could hear shouting coming from the intercom in the execution room. Then the chute began to lower. I guessed that if I wasn't going to the rats, they were going to bring the rats to me. The trapdoor shut behind me, and the chute continued lowering until it was within a few feet of the grid. The ravenous rats began jumping onto the chute, pouring up the trough like a flash flood in reverse.
I had been covered by the rats before-in the hallway-but I hadn't felt this way then. The bowl was designed to collect and focus energy toward a collector, and I had become the center of that focus, channeling the pure energy of a million rats.
The first rats didn't come within six feet of me before they burned up like meteors entering the Earth's atmosphere. I was becoming even more electric. I was lightning. I was pure energy. Then I wasn't burning the rats anymore; I was vaporizing them. For the first time, I felt more electric than human. I wondered if I would vaporize too.
As the metal rollers began to glow beneath me, I slowly stood and walked, on an incline, down the chute, my feet clinging to the metal. The rats began running from me, scrambling as if they were fleeing a burning s.h.i.+p. I walked to the end of the chute, then stepped down onto the grid.
I looked up at the observation window. Hatch was pressed against the gla.s.s. Even with
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 gla.s.s, 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.
Everything stilled. A dying alarm echoed across the bowl, and the only light came from me and the burning carca.s.ses 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. Raul 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 s.h.i.+rt, 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.