Resist

Now it’s his turn to be angry. “And how will I do that? The Resistance worked for years to steal cuttings and build a new world. I’m one person. It’s not like I could overthrow the government.”

Maybe I’m being hard on him, but that’s because it’s only people in his privileged position who can change things. “What if we could overthrow the government?” I ask.

He stomps on a glass bottle and it smashes into a hundred pieces. “How?” he asks.

I don’t know yet. But at least I know that he’s willing. And if he is, we’ll find a way.

25 QUINN

Sequoia’s zip looks like it was dragged kicking and screaming from a swamp. The paint’s peeled away and the blades are covered in rust. I’m not sure it’s even going to make it off the ground let alone into the city and back again, and I’d refuse to get in if I had another choice. Maks sees my expression and slaps the side of the zip. “Found this beauty at an old RAF barracks,” he says.

I climb into the back next to some dude whose nails are bitten to the quick and the skin around them raw and peeling. When he sees me looking, he curls his hands around his rifle to hide them.

Maks sits next to the pilot. “Here,” he says, and throws two pairs of enormous earphones into the back. “We’re ready,” he says, his voice crackling through them.

The zip comes to life, the blades rotating so hard I’m rocked from side to side. The pilot sniffs and speaks: “Sequoia control. Takeoff direction: zero seven. Flight plan: eight hundred feet. Ready for immediate departure.”

“Sequoia station. Copy that. Clear to takeoff,” I hear.

“Roger that.” The pilot pulls back the steering column, and the zip lifts away from the tarmac. It creaks like hundreds of unoiled door hinges, and I grip the seat, scared witless that the whole thing’s going to come to pieces in the air.

The pilot pushes the column forward and the zip’s nose tilts forward with more creaking and groaning. But soon we’re high above the ground looking down at a land dotted with gray and black mounds of rubble and impassable, ruptured roads. I’ve never seen anything like it before and I want to take it all in, but I’m too worried about Jazz and Bea to enjoy the scenery. I hope we aren’t too late.

We lurch to the left, and I hold on to the door handle to stop myself from sliding along the seat. We careen over a wide river and sunken dock.

“Bit of wind. Nothing to worry about,” the pilot says, righting the aircraft.

Maks swivels in his seat to look at me. “You scared?” he says. I shake my head— no. He raises his eyebrows. “Maybe you should be: I wouldn’t want to be you, if Vanya’s kid’s croaked it.” He laughs at the idea and turns away.

I look out at the fields again and think about Jazz. She already had an infection when I left. By now there’s every chance it’s killed her, and if it has, Bea and I won’t have anything to sweeten Vanya’s fury.

How will Bea be coping with the loneliness? Will she have stayed in the station? “How long until we get there?” I ask, but my earphones aren’t miked, so no one hears me over the noise of the blades.

All I can do is wait.

26 BEA

Ronan and I have been pacing for an hour. Out onto the balcony and back inside, brainstorming ways to take the Ministry down. But every idea we hit on is full of holes. After everything that’s happened, we need a watertight plan.

“It’s useless,” he says at last, falling into a chair on the balcony. “If there was a way, someone would have thought of it by now.”

I don’t agree. Just because no one’s managed something in the past, doesn’t mean the future’s lost. I’d be no good at hand-to-hand combat or shooting guns, but I’m smart. And I’ll figure this out.

“You told me that the army’s numbers were down since The Grove.” I sit next to him and focus hard on a window with its glass knocked out.

He shakes his head. “Not enough to weaken the pod’s defenses. And anyway, Jude’s recruiting more.”

A fork has found its way outside. I pick it up and fling it across the street, where it disappears through the broken window. Ronan laughs. “Good shot,” he says.

The seed of something is coming to me. I lean with one hand on the railing. “If it’s true that Jude’s done some kind of turnabout, he’s the key,” I say.

Ronan shrugs. “He’s just as much a puppet as I am.”

“If he is a puppet, he’s a puppet with power. They trust him to run the army, don’t they?” I pause and turn to Ronan. The solution is coming . . . it’s coming.

And I have it.

I grab Ronan’s hands and pull him to his feet. “You said . . .” I take a breath. I’m scared that if I don’t say it, the idea will evaporate. “You said Jude Caffrey was recruiting. What if . . .” Could it work? Would Quinn’s dad do it? “What if he only recruited auxiliaries sympathetic to the Resistance? They’d be given training and guns and be privy to inside information. It could work, Ronan. Couldn’t it?”

He thinks for a moment, squeezing my hands and gazing at me. Then he smiles. “Holy hell . . . I think it could.”

I am about to throw my arms around him and tell him that Quinn’s coming, that all we have do is wait, when a noise I recognize too well makes the hair on my arms prickle. The station vibrates and the sky thunders like a vicious storm is passing overhead. “You sent for zips.” I drop his hands and back away.

Ronan shakes his head frantically. “I swear I didn’t.” He doesn’t seem to know what to do.

“Take your clothes off,” I say, raising my voice. A look of understanding washes over him as he watches me undress and does the same. I untie my laces. “We need to be cold so the thermo-sensors don’t find us.”

“Yes, yes. But don’t cut your feet,” he warns. I leave the laces untied and pull my trousers off over my boots. He’s already seen me in my underwear, but I still feel exposed. I swallow down the embarrassment and focus on staying alive.

I dash onto the balcony and lather myself in handfuls of slush still frozen in its corners and so does Ronan. I can’t help noticing how athletic his body looks. And dark. Next to him, my skin looks bleached and scrawny. He rubs snow over himself and shivers.

The zip appears, weaving between buildings on its approach. It’s much smaller than the one I saw when I was with Alina and Maude, and flying low. “It’s coming from the west,” Ronan shouts over the noise of the blades. “The pod is east.” Which means it’s coming from the wrong direction.

“Then who?” I shout. Could it be Quinn and Alina? She stole a tank—maybe she’d steal a zip, too. But how would she pilot it?

We hurry inside and foolishly, I cover my head with my hands. The roaring of the propeller blades dwindles, then intensifies again as the zip circles overhead. “They know we’re here,” I shout above the noise.

“This way!” We don’t have time to get back into our clothes, so we stuff them into Ronan’s backpack and sprint down the stairs. The noise is deafening. The zip is landing on the road. The whirling blades send debris flying in every direction. “Quick!” Ronan urges. I follow him through the station, jumping over human bones, and onto a road strewn with poles, their old electrical wiring still attached. Ronan heads left toward a clock tower with its hands missing.

He runs ahead and before long there’s a distance between us. I stop as the sound of the zip finally abates and everything is still. Ronan gestures for me to follow him, but my heart is pounding, and I can’t shout to tell him, so I scuff onward and when I reach him, he takes my hand and drags me along. “What’s the matter?” he