CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
As Meesha had warned me, within what I estimate is about half an hour, the entrance door fades, and my future self walks in. He says nothing, just gazes at me with thoughtful eyes.
"I remember when I was your age and still had a reason to live. I miss it, you know?"
He kneels down beside me and pulls out a small device from his jacket's inner pocket. It looks like another Mute Card, and I start shaking.
"Don't worry. I'm going to take your Mute Cared off, but you have to promise me not to yell. I'm going to get you out of here."
He presses his device against one corner of the plate and I feel it cool down and detach from my skin. He's about to start on another corner when the door fades again and Axel appears.
"Sir," he says officiously, "please accept my apologies, but may I ask what you're doing?"
My future self shoots me a warning glance and I know he has a plan. He rises to his feet and walks over to Axel. "Just offering the boy a little bit of reassurance. There's no need to torture him."
"I'm sorry, but Norrek hasn't authorized any activity in this room other than from the Infirmary Sector. You will have to leave."
"Of course. Understandable, my friend. But you can imagine what it must feel like to see yourself in such a situation?"
"I do. And I apologize once again, but we must vacate immediately."
My future self twists to face me and grins. He digs his hand into his jacket, swiftly spins back around, and Axel crashes to the floor. A massive needle is jutting out from his neck. He hurries over to Axel's body and drags him a few feet away from the hologram doorway.
"That'll keep him down for a few minutes. Norrek isn't a fool, though. If one of the Peace Hunters' vitals go down before a certain hour of the day, an alarm goes out." As he's finishing this warning, a loud, threatening alarm blares. "Well, there you have it. We have to go—now!"
As he pulls me to my feet, I hear the stomping of the guards running around in a frenzy. One of them stops at the door of my cell but my future self signals to him that all is okay. The guard gives us a skeptical look, but another guard shoves him forward and they continue on.
I follow myself through the Prisoners' Floor, past the hive of cells, until we reach an elevator pod and step inside. Gunshots go off, and Axel is charging toward us shouting and firing. The injection must still be affecting him because he looks so fatigued that he's staggering, and his aim is way off.
The elevator lifts us, and my future self hurries to finish detaching the Mute Card from my mouth.
I feel around my mouth and sigh with relief at the sensation of feeling the waves of breath on my hands for the first time in hours.
"We should be going down!" I shout. "Why are we going up?"
"We're going up because the entire lower floor will be on lock down and buzzing with
guards."
"Why are you helping me?" I ask.
"There's a lot that changes in the future, Gavin. A lot. I may be here now, but I share nothing with them. I'm here because I was forced to. It was the only way I could ensure that the people you and I love didn't suffer because of us."
"But why join them? Why not do something else? There's always a plan."
"That's what I thought too. But I learned that sometimes there is no way out ... and
sometimes that becomes the plan."
We reach the peak of The Nest, a smaller room that offers a breathtaking view of the new world. For a moment, I have time to think that from up here, anyone would feel like God. Then Norrek, Naima, and an army of guards charge out of another elevator pod across the room from us.
"Don't be stupid, Gavin!" Norrek yells. "There's nowhere else to go. Look around you. It's a dead end."
I look over at my future self. He must have a solution. But his eyes and face are calm, free of worry.
I hear a humming noise and look down. Meesha and a group of armed renegade workers are on their way up in the elevator pod we just came out of.
When they reach the room, Meesha shouts, "Go! Get him outta here!" and a cacophony of crackling gunshots ensues.
My future self pushes me ahead of him and motions for me to run toward the farthest end of the room, away from the Peace Hunters. The glass walls are shattering all around us like deadly confetti, and we're forced to drop to the floor and crawl.
"Stop! Now!" Norrek shouts over the deafening gunfire. "While you still can!"
"What are we doing?" I shout to my future self. "What's the plan? We're stuck!"
"Just follow me!" he says.
I can't help but turn around. The renegade workers are going down quickly. They don't stand a chance, and I feel nothing but guilt because this is nothing but a suicide mission aimed at saving me. I spot Meesha yelling over the explosion of bullets. Norrek appears beside her and knocks her over the head with the butt of his gun. She crumples to the floor.
"Meesha!" I yell.
Norrek turns to me with a death glare on his face, looks back down at Meesha, and pulls the trigger. Her head explodes, and all I see is blood. Lots of blood. He pulls the trigger again.
I turn back, but my future self throws his arms around my chest and drags me away with him. "We can't!" he shouts. "Go! Go!"
I can't leave her! But I'm silenced by her death, and it didn't take the Mute Card for it to happen. No! Meesha! No!
We reach the back of the floor, where the horizontal glass wall ends.
"Close your eyes!" he warns me.
"What—why?"
"Just trust me!" he barks, and pulls a tiny pulsing orb out of his pocket. He rolls it along the floor of the room, like it's a bowling ball, and then tackles me to the floor.
I hear an elongated, piercing beep, and within milliseconds a deafening destructive blast that strips off a quarter of the wall, separating the barrier between the free air and us.
"Jump!" he yells. "You need to go! Jump!"
"Jump? Are you crazy? I'm not jumping!"
"It's your only hope, Gavin. Our only hope! Jump!"
"No. I can't!"
He shakes his head in aggravation. "Listen to me. Never, ever take sides with them. Not for any reason. Never, no matter what. No matter how desperate you may be. Never do it."
"I thought you said there were times when there's nothing else to do."
"I was wrong." He quickly glances over in the direction to where Meesha's body is. "No time. We have to go!" He hoists me over his shoulders and bolts for the hole in the glass. "Say the chant on the way down!"
"But I hate heights—" Then he forces us both over.
My hands are flailing, punching at the air for something to grab onto. All I hear are gunshots and the whirling, beating wind. All I see are rivers of glittering lights and a yellowish crack in the dark sky that I think is a crescent moon.
I flip around in the air trying to focus my eyes as glass walls zoom past me. I spot several flashes of light high above me at the cap of The Nest. They're still shooting at me.
My free-fall is making me lightheaded and breathless. The wind whipping past me is cold and harsh. If I don't do something soon, I'm going to die right here. The last words by my future self come to me. I try searching for him in the air, surely another rocketing speck free-falling to the ground, but I can't spot him.
Say the chant, Gavin!
No more time to waste. In seconds I'll be nothing but splattered body parts. I close my eyes and shout, "Take me home to what is mine! Back to the present, back to my time!"
