The three of us ran for the spot where Mica and Peter had gone through. To the side, I could see the two tractors rumbling across the clearing, one of them clearly heading to the old break. Kelvin increased his lead, disappearing into the darkness as we neared the inner ditch, the berm beyond, and the tall and buzzing fence.
Tarsi and I shuffled down through the steep rut and scrambled up the berm. Kelvin cursed and fumbled in his pack for something. The fence hummed furiously above us; I crawled up even with Kelvin to see what was taking him so long.
The fence had been patched.
Solid replacement bars were welded across the breach. None of us had heard plans made for the repair that day, nor had anything been put on the timetables for the work. We had brought along insulated cutters and wire in case we needed to make our own hole, but there seemed little time with the klaxon and search party. Looking back toward base, I saw the tractor halfway to the fence already, lumbering along with a menacing roar.
“What do we do?” Tarsi asked.
I started to suggest we follow the ditch, sneak back into camp, blend in with the search party and pretend we were never attempting to flee. Then, figures materialized out of the darkness, coming for us along the ditch. And I realized it was too late.
“Porter? Tarsi?” Jorge scampered up the berm toward us—the fear in his eyes marking him as a fellow escapee, not a warden on the prowl. Several other shapes materialized in the ditch, more people converging on yesterday’s exit.
“Make the cuts!” I yelled back to Kelvin, who had already begun doing just that. I ran down the berm and helped several others up, watching the tractor and people on foot make their way toward us. Cones of light splayed out from a few of the walkers as they scanned the ground with flashlights.
The klaxon went off again, hopefully a sign Kelvin had made the first cut, not messing with the wires. Three other people scampered up past me. I looked back and saw a pathetic, trembling crowd huddled by the fence, waiting for a way out. But the tractor and the men were going to get to us before we made it through. The machine’s headlights illuminated the ground just a hundred feet from us, but that distance was steadily decreasing.
My feet made the next decision, rather than my head. They led me out of the ditch and straight toward the headlights—my resolve laboring to catch up. When it did, I found myself running to meet the tractor and the walking, searching silhouettes. Over the buzzing of the fence and the revving of the engine, I heard Tarsi yell out for me, but even that didn’t shake me to my senses.
As soon as I hit the edge of the tractor’s lights, a set of shouts rang out from ahead, our pursuers barking with excitement at having made contact.
I turned to the side and ran parallel to the fence, hoping to draw the light away.
I drew gunfire instead.
A loud pop shot out over the hum of the tractor and something whistled through the air above my head, another reversal of the bombfruit sounds.
Again. Bang and whistle.
I ducked my head reflexively and churned my legs. After the next pop, a fountain of dirt erupted ahead of me. I had to force myself to not slow down, keeping in mind a moving target would be harder to hit. When I neared the edge of the tractor’s cone of light—almost back into darkness—I heard more shouting. Directions were yelled. The light turned, keeping me in its sight, taking us both away from the hole in the fence.
The pops started coming in groups, the buzzing and plumes of dirt surrounding me. I had pressed my luck too far. I veered back toward the perimeter, sprinting hard for the ditch as the tractor’s headlamps illuminated the high fence beyond. Diving for the edge, I tumbled inside, my small pack of supplies flying loose and spilling across the dirt. Like a fool, I clutched for a few of the precious items. I felt my flashlight rolling through the dirt and grabbed it. I groped for other items, then the thumps of running feet jarred me back to the danger behind.
Keeping my head low, I ran back toward the hole in the fence, wondering if I’d given Kelvin half the time he needed. I had almost reached the edge of the tractor’s lights when I heard grunts behind me—enforcers spilling into the ditch. Another pop and the berm erupted with a shower of soil. I had no idea if I was getting lucky, or if they just had horrid aim. I had no idea how difficult it was to operate a handgun while on the move.
With no need to hide any longer, I kept my head up so I could run faster, and I saw over the lip of the ditch that the first tractor was backing up and making a slow turn to follow. The second machine bore down on the breach in the fence; the pursuit was converging on the most logical point of escape—the same bad idea that had brought us all together that night.
After another flurry of pops sounded from behind, I felt something pinch my thigh. I hobbled for a few steps, thinking I’d been shot, but the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Ahead of me, the dark shapes of my fellow escapees came into view, and then the floodlights of the second tractor lit them up like what I imagined raw unfiltered daylight to be like.
More shots, followed by the zing of metal on metal. I noticed the group had grown smaller than when I’d left them and hoped that meant the hole was open. Running as fast as I could, my lungs burning from the effort, I glanced back at the enforcers and saw they weren’t moving much faster. They were just as winded as me.
Up the berm I went, scrambling for the hole as the cluster of bodies at the top seemed to have been whittled down to just a few. I pushed up behind someone, urging them forward as dirt exploded around us. Another shot ricocheted off the fence above us with a loud zing. The legs ahead of me flew out of sight and I fell forward, pressing myself flat against the dirt, throwing my arms through the hole. All around me was the loud buzzing of a quick death. One touch and my body would be cooked, smoking and burning like the falling heads of my nightmares, like all my vat-mates who hadn’t made it—
Several pairs of hands grasped me from outside. I couldn’t even kick my legs to help; they just yanked me through, all of us tumbling down the other side of the berm, where we rolled through the dirt, panting and wheezing.
Before we could take stock or enjoy the weak thrill of freedom, we found ourselves running again, wary of the chance of pursuit from behind, overcome with the odd sensation of a fenceless horizon as we stumbled into darkness and the perilous unknown.
• 16 •
Old Friends
Morning came, its feeble rays slanting through the dense canopy overhead, and winding around trees that rose up in great cliffs of wood. Our group lay together in a tight cluster, our heads on various parts of each other. Exhaustion had overtaken a few of us just an hour into our hike through the blackness. Despite protestations, I had been unwilling to hazard the light, for fear of being spotted. Of the three flashlights that had been brought between all the escapees, mine was the only one that had survived our mad push through the fence.
Sitting up, I noticed a few others had awoken before me. Kelvin, Vincent, and Britny—the last a girl I hardly knew—sat together a dozen paces away, whispering and allowing the rest of us to enjoy our sleep. I disentangled myself from Tarsi and tried to stand, only to feel a stabbing pain in the back of my thigh. Hobbling away from the other sleepers, I moved halfway to Kelvin before collapsing.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, coming to my side.
“I think I got shot last night,” I told him. “Forgot all about it. Didn’t hurt much ’til now.”
“Roll over,” he said, trying to keep his voice low, his worry threatening to wake the others.
I lay facedown in the mossy groundcover and saw Vincent and Britny casting me confused looks. I waved— partly from embarrassment—as Kelvin pulled my trousers down to inspect the wound. They both waved back, and something in the normalcy of the gesture amused me. We were failed planetary colonists on the run from our own people, out in the middle of an unexplored planet that supposedly teetered between viability and abort. And there we were, waving at one another with sheepish grins, taking stock of who had made the break, who had been fed up with their lives enough to chance throwing them away.
“Ow,” I hissed, as Kelvin found my wound and probed it with his hand. He brought something up in front of
