Unplugged: The Beautiful World (#3, Unplugged Trilogy)

Chapter Twenty One

Enna

I wake slowly a few hours later, gingerly lifting my head from the edge of the bed. A thrill of pain travels down my neck in protest, and I rub it until the discomfort disappears. I'm the only visitor in the Medical Quadrant now, and I can no longer hear the usual laughing and shouting from the rest of the hideout; I must have been asleep for a long time. Beside me, a long, thick gauze-like wrap had been tightly rolled around Matthew's torso. He still sleeps, but does so a great deal more peacefully than before.
"I don't know what I'm gonna do with you," I mutter, sighing to myself.
"Me neither," he mutters. I'm so startled that I jump and slam my knees against the metal edge of the hospital bed.
"Oh my gosh, Matthew," I groan. "Don't do that!" He slowly blinks his eyes open, laughing under his breath.
"Did I getcha?"
"You owe me leg braces," I retort, lightheartedly punching his arm. He smiles at me briefly then looks down to observe the gauze wrapped around his chest. His face turns slightly red.
"Hope said that you dislocated a rib..." I say carefully. "How do you feel?"
"Like I dislocated a rib," he replies, lying his head back on a pillow. I can tell that the effort of sitting up and talking made him dizzy. He closes his eyes for a moment.
"I can leave. Everyone else is--"
"No, I'm just resting. Gimme a minute." I sit in silence and glance around at the surrounding beds. Two other people, not counting Sara, lie still under their covers. They are either sleeping or seriously injured. I wonder how often it is that people get hurt around here ... And how? On missions? Because of bombs?
"That was really risky, Matthew. We could have gotten kicked out," I whisper, trying not to sound too chiding. He opens his eyes again, about to reply, but they focus on my face instead. His gaze softens.
"Did he hurt you too?"
"Nah. I mean..." I rub the small patches of bruises on my face. "Not really." He lifts his arm and takes my head in his hand. It's rough and warm. I don't protest the gesture. I close my eyes, but instead of peace, a blinding image of the dying forest appears on the backs of my eyelids, as though imprinted on my retinas. I gasp and pull away, startled. Matthew's eyes grow sad and he withdraws his hand.
"I'm sorry," I mutter, awkwardly rubbing my arm. "I just had a bad... dream. After I went unconscious."
"Unconscious? What are you talking about?" Matthew furrows his brow. My mouth becomes dry.
"Didn't I pass out after the fight?"
"No. You just took a hard hit." He inclines his head and narrows his eyes, as if studying a mentally ill patient. "Weren't you there?"
"Um..." I force myself to stare anywhere but his gaze. What really happened back there? That had to have been a vision, yet visions don't just happen in the middle of reality like commercial inserts. Am I truly losing my mental stability?
"Enna, are you okay?" I can't make myself look at him, so instead I swallow shakily and smile as normally as possible.
"Yeah. I guess I just hit my head harder than I thought--"
"Hey!" I spin around in my chair to face the source of the noise. Danny. His eyes droop in an unwelcoming way, but they lift slightly at the sight of me. "No visitors after dark. Resistance rules." I glance at Matthew one last time before following Danny out of the Medical Quadrant.
"That was a poor move your friend made back there," he hisses as soon as we leave Matthew's earshot. Piles of blankets and sleeping bodies make walking difficult, but Danny expertly picks around the obstructions.
"That wasn't our fault--!"
"I don't care who's fault it was." Danny spits. He leads me towards a quiet bench next to the leaning structure. Each moment that we converse makes me even more uncomfortable, but somehow I still have the feeling that he has something important to say. "People are scared enough as it is, without your little posse picking fights with Jackson."
"But we didn't--!" Danny holds up a hand and sends me a look that silences me in an instant.
"Look, I know he can be short-tempered and all that. But you have to trust him. You have to trust everyone here, or they won't trust you." Aggravated, I exhale sharply from my nose.
"What if my goal isn't to please all of you? What if my goal is to survive?"
"The two go hand in hand." Danny's eyes sparkle in the darkness, and he tiredly runs a hand over his shaved head. "You think there's anywhere safer than here?"
Of course not, I think glumly. Where else could I find someplace with warm food, plentiful supplies, and people who don't want to kill me?
"What did you want me for?" I ask quietly, feeling odd and contained. Danny sits quietly for a long time. I start to think that he won't answer me until he raises his head and nods at a pile of blankets a few feet away. I squint my eyes to see in the dark, only to recognize the young girl who had been star-struck by Matthew and I. A gentle light enters Danny's gaze.
"Her name is Becca. I found her a couple months ago, trembling behind a pile of rubble. She looked about as thin as a stick, that's how hungry she was." I watch the child sleep with her glasses crushed under her face, confused about the purpose of Danny's story.
"Did you take her in?"
"Yeah. Apparently her parents worked with the government, and they abandoned her just after the attacks started. Left her flat on the streets." He shakes his head distastefully. "It's a sick world out there."
"I'm sorry, but... What does that have to do with me?"
"She's the smartest kid I've ever met, even if a bit shy. I wanted to remind you that people like her look up to you. Average people, with strengths and weaknesses. And people look up to that ... guy of yours, too."
"Matthew," I snap.
"Whatever." A hint of weakness enters his gaze, and I start to realize what he's trying to do: persuade me. "What I'm trying to say is that you give people hope. And I could use your assistance--" An empty silence suddenly permeates the air and the ground grows completely still, as if the Earth had stopped in the middle of its rotation. The helicopters above us had ceased their never-ending flight and hover in a single spot. Danny tilts his head back to look at the ceiling and squints his eyes. I can see the fear in them, even in the dark.
"What the--?"
"Target One is obliterated. There are no survivors." A steely, metallic voice booms across the city, through the brick walls enclosing us, inside my skull. "Pack up and move on." I feel myself duck to the floor and freeze on instinct, like an animal being hunted. Do they know we're here? Will they catch us at last?
"Get up, will you?" Danny demands quietly, pulling at my arm. Despite his rough manner, I can see a strange, expectant fear lying behind his eyes. Feeling slightly foolish, I slowly rise to my knees and observe the dark warehouse. Men, women, and children slowly raise from their beds in a confused daze. Chatter begins to fill the air as, above us, the magnified order is repeated several times. Adrenaline plummets through my veins like hot acid, propelling me to my feet.
"What does that mean?" I splutter. "Obliterated? How didn't they find us? What happens next?"
"Enna, just shut up, alright? I'm trying to think..." Danny holds his head in his hands, massaging his temples with trembling fingers. At this moment, I am far from envying his position as leader here. He's too young to have this much responsibility on his shoulders...
"A meeting, the wires... Yes, that's the only way. I'll use the Jewels, maybe contact..." Though he seems to be talking to himself, I can't help but blurt out a question.
"Contact?" Danny raises his head, as if surprised that I'd even heard him.
"It doesn't matter now. We need some look-outs to..." His words trail off as he focuses on something behind me, coming nearer. I spin around and almost groan: Jackson. His nose looks like a small, squashed tomato and a guilty surge of pleasure splits through my spine when I recall his pitiful whimpers.
"Danny, what in the world is going on?" He says, taking my spot on the bench as if I weren't kneeling right behind it. "The copters are stationary, all these soldiers are screaming crap about our city being totaled..."
"Don't you think I'm aware of that already?" Danny retorts, leaning his head back to get a clear view of the sky again. "I feel sick with not knowing."
"Maybe someone should go out and scout," I suggest, raising my voice to be heard over another blaring announcement. Jackson spins around and squints his eyes in disgust, as if observing an ugly weed breaking through a plot of rich soil.
"What makes you think that will work?" He hisses.
"You know, she does make sense," Danny mutters thoughtfully. Jackson's mouth falls open in shock. He promptly closes it. "But it would be another thing entirely to find someone who would be willing to go..."
"I will." I reply simply. Jackson's mouth falls open again, and then he bursts into cruel laughter. When he finally lapses into silence, Danny sends him a glare and leans in towards me.
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah." The words speak themselves of their own volition, and I start to wonder if I'm only saying this because I want to oneup Jackson. Too late now. "I mean, someone's got to figure out what's going on. I've done a lot of hiding lately. I'm ready for a challenge."
"But you're the one with the ransom on her head. You're Enna Price." Danny keeps his gaze trained on my face, and I feel the awkward urge to look away. But I don't. Instead, I shrug and send a confident, cocky smirk towards Jackson, Leah-style.
"That's precisely the reason why I can handle it."

* * *

The smell of smoke and dirt wafts into my lungs as soon as the metal door slams shut behind me.
Bone-deep vulnerability mixed with a tainted sense of freedom: that's what being outside feels like after living behind walls for three months. The open patch of sky directly above my alley is clear from view but full of dust: perfect conditions for sneaking around unnoticed. The sun is about an eighth of the way in the sky, so I have all the light I need to see.
So much for a good night's sleep.
Sucking in a breath of air, I start towards the end of the alley, towards the speaker's blaring voice. Does it come from a megaphone? Some sort of aerial speaker? It doesn't matter, I remind myself. Just figure out what the heck is going on so you can return safely.
I hadn't told anyone but Danny that I was leaving the warehouse. Now, doubts start to play through my mind. What if something happens to me, and no one would be any wiser as to what's going on?
But then I realize that my overactive imagination is just running loose, and that I need to focus on performing the task at hand. Shaking my head, I plunge into the nearest street, among the rubble. It looks about ten times worse than it did previously, which is really saying a lot. The city is utterly flattened in every direction, divided only by yard-high piles of junk. Stale, sour air permeates the rocks and concrete. I start to feel... tainted.
"Report back to your designated Captain so we can get this show on the road. Patrols, you have ten minutes left before lift-off." The owner of the voice is definitely a man, and I'm guessing that he's somehow speaking from one of the helicopters. After climbing out from beneath a pile of rubble, I can see about thirty helicopters clustered together mid-air like menacing bees returning to the hive. The queen bee is in the center of the circle: a red and blue government jet. Behind me, the warehouse is completely covered in dust and glass and steel from the toppled buildings surrounding it. No wonder it hadn't been detected: it looks just like all the other mountains of debris.
"Come on, Enna," I whisper to myself. Slowly and carefully I pick over crumbling blocks of building material and broken bits of furniture, trying to find different vantage points of the city. Is there really nothing left at all? My spirit turns cold for a moment at the idea that the Depot is completely gone. I walk almost a mile down what used to be the street, searching for anything interesting on the ground or in the sky. Just as I turn another corner, something stops me in my tracks: a soldier dressed all in black, with a heavy machine gun strapped to his vest. He's coming right at me, but I don't think he's seen me yet. Suppressing a shriek, I dip beneath a smoking mahogany desk. It looks like one that might be found in an insurance agent's office.
"I'm not finding anything," I can hear the soldier say into a hand-held radio with a scratchy, drawling voice. "Alright, I'm heading back. Tell Jeremy to hold the take-off." I try to hold my breath, but it still keeps bursting through my nostrils in panicked exhales, trying to give me away. The soldier comes nearer. I can't see his face because of the shadows that cover it. Please, I beg to no one in particular. And then I see the sandy-haired man--Father--in my head. Vision or not, I'd be crazy not to ask for help right now. If you are who you say you are, please help me, I plead. The soldier steps past my head, and a wave of relief presses into my temples. I sigh. Then, a loosened stone rolls down a nearby pile of rock, and the soldier spins around. His eyes lock on mine. And I do what I've always done in life-threatening situations: run.