I’m not sure I understand that either, but I nod anyway.
“Okay,” he says a few taps later. “It looks like a bulletin went out to all the year-sixteen trade labor division instructors a couple of hours ago. They were asked to bring all their classes to the Defense Bureau in staggered time slots. That’s probably where the blood tests were performed. It’s probably also where the recall will take place. Rumor has it there’s an underground level only the top-ranking Defense officials have access to for that very purpose.”
I try to swallow my horror. “There’s a secret killing level in the Defense Bureau?”
“Its existence isn’t the secret. It’s the location most people don’t know.”
“Can you tell if they’re still there?”
“Not from Sorrel 32’s feed. Your instructors won’t have the security clearance to access the specifics on this. Mine won’t either. That’ll be limited to top-tier Defense and Management officials.”
“Okay. Can you get us into the building?”
Trigger shrugs as he slides his tablet back into an inner pocket. “Yes, until they discover what I’m doing and strip my access.”
Which won’t be long, if anyone has discovered him missing. “So we need to go now.”
“We need to have gone two hours ago.”
My shoes hardly hit the fourth-floor landing before we’re past it, only three flights from the ground now. I look up at the spiral of stairs above us and I can’t believe how far we’ve come already. Yet how far we still have to go.
“We can’t just march across the city,” Trigger says as I try to match each of his silent steps with one of my own. “We need a plan.”
“I have one.” I stop, panting, at the very bottom of the stairwell with nothing except a single steel door separating me from an entire city that wants me dead. “We’re going to march across the city. Or rather, you’re going to march me across the city. Your whole division’s supposed to be looking for me, right? Do you have one of those plastic restraints like they put on us in the equipment shed?”
“You want me to pretend to have caught you?” Trigger looks intrigued.
“That would let you walk us both right up to the building, wouldn’t it?”
“They’ll take custody of you the second they see you. They’ll do that before we get to the bureau, if anyone from Management or Defense sees us on the way.”
“So we avoid the common lawns and go behind the buildings instead. We can sneak most of the way and only walk boldly when there’s a chance we’ll be seen. Will that work?”
Trigger shrugs. “I doubt it. But your plan’s better than anything I’ve come up with. However, the hard part will be getting past the gate into the administration ward.”
“Oh.” Of course. “Um…”
“There’s a gate on the back side of the training ward that only has one guard. It’s mostly used for shipping. I think that’s our best bet.”
“Okay. So the plastic restraint?” I glance at his waist and notice for the first time that he’s not wearing an equipment belt like full-fledged soldiers do. “Please tell me those are standard-issue?”
“For a cadet? No. But I might know where we can get one.” Trigger eases open the interior stairwell door. Over his shoulder I see an empty first-floor hallway. He closes the door softly, then opens the exterior door on the right. Even before I see grass and sky, I hear footsteps and voices. Instinctively I back away, but Trigger doesn’t seem worried, and after a second I realize why. The voices and footsteps are heading away from us.
The last place anyone expects a girl on the run to go is back to her dormitory.
I can’t decide whether that makes me stupid or brilliant.
Trigger removes his backpack—it would be a dead giveaway in our new plan—and takes my hand again as we step out of the stairwell onto a sidewalk that hugs the side of the dormitory. It’s mostly used by the grounds crew and manual labor division, who push carts and wheelbarrows loaded with supplies from the delivery bay at the back of the…
The delivery bay.
“No!” I whisper, tugging Trigger to a stop. “We’ll be seen.”
“No, we won’t. Most shipments come in the morning.” He pulls on my hand again, and I follow him around the building, hugging the wall with the hope that the afternoon shadows will hide us. “This time of day, the bay should be deserted, except for…” Instead of finishing his sentence, he levels an openhanded, triumphant gesture at two vehicles sitting at the curb, straddling the cruise strip.
One car is blue with the Lakeview city seal painted on the side. It’s a patrol car.
The other is neither a patrol car nor a CitiCar, open to use by the general public. For adults, anyway. CitiCars are all bright yellow and numbered. This car is shiny and black, and its windows are so tinted I can’t see inside. It’s a personal vehicle, and those are only issued to very important people.
Bureau chiefs. Management officials. The Administrator.
It must belong to Ford 45.
Trigger lets go of my hand. “I’ll be right back,” he whispers, then jogs across the bay toward the patrol car, hunched over. He pulls open one of the front doors and reaches into the small compartment beneath the dashboard. A second later he is jogging toward me again with not just one but several white plastic restraint strips.
“You sure you want to do this?” he whispers, holding them up for my inspection.
“I’m sure I don’t have any other choice.” I turn and put my hands behind my back, and even though I’ve volunteered for this I am almost as scared as I was when the real soldiers restrained me in the equipment shed.
The plastic is cold against my wrists, and I can both hear and feel the zipping sensation when he pulls one end through the slot on the other. He leaves it loose enough to be comfortable. I flex my wrists and realize that if I have to, I can pull myself free.
“Just in case,” he explains.
“Does it look too loose?”
“If anyone gets close enough to notice, we’ll have bigger problems to worry about. You ready?”
I wouldn’t be ready even if I had a decade to prepare. Instead of answering, I turn and hold one bent elbow toward him.
Trigger wraps his hand around my arm and takes a deep breath. I wonder if he can possibly be as nervous about this as I am, but there’s no time to ask, because in the next moment we’re moving, not toward the common lawn but away from it. Toward the rear of the dormitory and the little-used walkway connecting it to the rear entrances of many other buildings in the training ward.
It’s a ten-minute walk from the dorm to the small gate he mentioned, but it feels like forever with my hands restrained at my back. With the possibility of a very real arrest hanging over my head.
Every rustle of tree limbs in the fall breeze makes me flinch. Every bird chirp raises my pulse. And when I hear footsteps headed our way, my feet try to spread roots into the sidewalk beneath me.