I snatch up the tanklet and turn. The Big Happy is a foot away, arms out. Stumbling backward, I fall just out of reach and then limp toward the steel door. With shaking hands, I pull each tanklet leg out and press the abdomen against the door. My left arm quivers with the effort of holding up the solid hunk of metal. With my free hand I reach into the tanklet’s back and cross the wires.
Reflexively, the tanklet pulls its barbed legs into itself. With a wrenching squeal, they catch on the door and claw through the metal. I let go and the tanklet clanks to the ground, arms grasping a six-inch hunk of solid steel door. A ragged hole gapes where the doorknob and lock used to be. My arms are dead tired now, useless. The Big Happy is inches away, hand out, grippers splayed and ready to clamp down on whatever part of my body is closest.
With a kick, I send the mangled door flying open.
On the other side, haunted eyes stare at me. Old women and children are crowded into the dormitory. Wooden bunk beds stretch up to the ceiling.
I duck inside and slam the door shut behind me, pressing my back against it as the Big Happy tries to push its way in. Luckily, the machine can’t get enough traction on the polished concrete floor to shove the door open right away.
“Mathilda!” I shout. “Nolan!”
The people stand in place, watching me. The machines know my ID number. They can track wherever I go and they won’t stop until I’m dead. Now is the only chance I’ll ever have to save my family.
And suddenly, there he is. My quiet little angel. Nolan stands in front of me, his dirty black hair ruffled. “Nolan,” I exclaim. He runs to me and I grab him up and hug him. The door jumps into my back as the machine keeps pushing. More are surely coming.
Wrapping my hands around Nolan’s delicate little face, I ask him, “Where’s your sister, Nolan? Where’s Mathilda?”
“She got hurt. After you left.”
I swallow my fear, for Nolan. “Oh no, baby, I’m sorry. Where did she go? Take me there.”
Nolan says nothing. He points.
With Nolan on my hip, I shove through the people and hurry down a hallway to the infirmary. Behind me, a couple of older women calmly push against the rattling door. There is no time to thank them, but I will remember their faces. I will pray for them.
I’ve never been in this long wooden room before. A narrow central walkway is partitioned off with hanging curtains on each side. I stride down the middle, yanking the curtains away to find my daughter. Each yank of a curtain reveals some new horror, but my brain doesn’t register any of it. There is only one thing I will recognize now. One face.
And then I see her.
My baby lies on a gurney with a monster hovering over her head. It’s some kind of surgery machine mounted on a metal arm, with a dozen plastic legs descending. Each robot leg is wrapped in sterile paper. At the tip of each leg is a tool: scalpels, hooks, soldering irons. The whole thing is moving in a blur—precise, jerky movements—like a spider weaving her web. The machine works on Mathilda’s face without stopping or seeming to notice my presence.
“No!” I shriek. I set Nolan down and grab the base of the machine. With all my might, I lift it up off my daughter’s face. Confused, the machine retracts its arms up into the air. In this split second, I shove the gurney with my foot and roll Mathilda’s body away from the machine. The wound in my leg reopens and I feel a trickle of blood spiraling down my calf.
The Big Happy must be close by now.
I lean over the gurney and look at my daughter. Something is horribly wrong. Her eyes. Her beautiful eyes are gone.
“Mathilda?” I ask.
“Mom?” she says, smiling.
“Oh, baby, are you okay?”
“I think so,” she says, frowning at the look on my face. “My eyes feel funny. What’s wrong?” With shaking fingers, she touches the dull black metal that is now buried in her eye sockets.
“Are you okay, honey? Can you see?” I ask.
“Yes. I can. I can see inside,” says Mathilda.
A sense of dread creeps into my belly. I’m too late. They’ve already hurt my little girl.
“What can you see, Mathilda?”
“I can see inside the machines,” she says.
It takes only a few minutes to make it to the perimeter. I lift Mathilda and Nolan over the top. The fence is only five feet high. It’s part of the lure to would-be saviors on the outside looking in. The hidden sentry guns that lurk in the field are designed to be the real security enforcers.
“Come on, Mom,” urges Mathilda, safely on the other side.
But my leg is bleeding badly now, blood pooling in my shoe and spilling over onto the ground. After getting Nolan over the fence, I’m too exhausted to move. With every last shred of effort, I keep myself conscious. I wrap my fingers through the chain link and hold myself up and look at my babies for the last time. “I will always love you. No matter what.”
“What do you mean? Come on. Please,” Mathilda says.
My vision is going away, getting smaller. I’m watching the world now through two pinpricks—the rest is darkness.
“Take Nolan and go, Mathilda.”
“Mom, I can’t. There are guns. I can
“Concentrate, honey. You have a gift now. See where the guns are. Where they can shoot. Find a safe path. Take Nolan by the hand and don’t let go.”
“Mommy,” says Nolan.
I shut down all my emotion. I have to. I can hear the whine of tanklet motors as they swarm the field behind me. I sag against the fence. From somewhere, I find the strength to shout.
“Mathilda Rose Perez! This is not an argument. You take your brother and you go. Run. Don’t stop until you’re very far away from here. Do you hear me? Run. Do it
Mathilda flinches at my voice. She takes a hesitant step away. I can feel my heart breaking. It’s a numb feeling, radiating out of my chest and crushing all thought—eating my fear.
Then Mathilda’s mouth squeezes into a line. Her brow settles down into a familiar stubborn frown over those dull, monstrous implants. “Nolan,” she says. “Hold on to my hand no matter what. Don’t let go. We’re going to run now. Super fast, okay?”
Nolan nods, takes her hand.
My little soldiers. Survivors.
“I love you, Mommy,” says Mathilda.
And then my babies are gone.
No further record exists of Laura Perez. Mathilda Perez, however, is another matter.
6. BAND-E-AMIR
That’s not a weapon, is it?
