A Touch of Truth Read online

  Orlando was also looking deeply uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as his sister. He would be responsible for using the remote to navigate her over the fence. One wrong move on his part more than likely would prove to be fatal.

  After we had talked about everything we could possibly think of that could go wrong, we fell quiet. This was Maura’s life on the line. She had to make the decision whether she was willing to risk it without any pressure from Orlando and me.

  We would do all that we could to make this as safe as possible—but even so, there would be nothing even remotely safe about any of it.

  Maura leaned back on the mattress and curled up her legs, bringing her knees to her chest. She didn’t speak for the next ten minutes. She rocked back and forth, looking rather sick.

  Finally she spoke. “I guess we all have to go somehow,” she said. She gave her brother a faint, distant smile. “I guess it would be kind of a noble way to go out, wouldn’t it? Literally flying for freedom.”

  Orlando’s jaw tightened. He didn’t respond.

  Maura exhaled. “All right, well… I’m willing to try it.”

  “Are you sure?” Orlando said, eyeing her seriously.

  She slid off the bed and moved to the window, where she stood, gazing out. “I mean, the water looks so close from here. The distance seems so unthreatening. There’s hardly any distance to go. If it was further, the decision would probably be a lot harder, but…” She paused her ramblings and was quiet again before concluding, “Yes, I’m sure.”

  We joined Maura by the window and looked out at the view afforded us by this high building.

  “Do you have any idea where the IBSI’s posts are?” I asked.

  “Not sure,” Orlando said. “We’re going to have to try to work it out from a roof.”

  “But this area in particular is definitely more densely populated,” Maura said, glancing to our right. “Oh, look, there’s the crematorium. Do you see it? It’s just there.”

  Orlando and I looked toward where she was pointing—a sprawling brick building that looked surprisingly new. Three broad chimneys protruded from the sloping roof, and as I strained my eyes to see, I realized that smoke was coming out of them. It was functioning right now.

  “Okay, well, I think we’ve seen all there is to see from this building,” Orlando said. “We need to find somewhere higher. We have to move away from this area without getting caught, and find a taller building.” He pointed to our left out of the window. “Further that way, where we’ve just come from, is definitely quieter.”

  “Back toward the direction of the church?” I asked.

  “Not so far. We need to stay close to the shore,” Orlando replied.

  We gathered our backpacks, and Orlando picked up the blade wheel.

  “So our plan should be this,” Orlando said quietly as we left the hotel suite and began heading back down the staircase. “We find a tall building and locate a quiet spot where Maura could make the flight. Once we’ve found it, we try to find a store where I can gather some materials to toughen up the wheel a bit. Make it more suitable for flying.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Orlando,” Maura said. “Where would we even begin to look? Stores can be the worst places for bumping into trouble. It’s where the gangs hang out. Besides, the only mechanical store we know of that hasn’t been completely ransacked is all the way on the other side of town. We would have to travel back the way we came.”

  “There might be another store nearby that we’re not aware of,” Orlando said. “But you’re right. It would mean a delay—possibly a big delay. Plus it would mean wandering about and making it more likely that we get caught… But Maura, I’m worried. Really worried.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “So am I.”

  The siblings lapsed into silence as we reached the ground floor of the hotel. We moved close to the walls, like shadows, and peered out of the entrance. We couldn’t spot any hunters on this road, or anyone else for that matter.

  “Let’s get out of here while we can,” Orlando said. We darted outside and kept close to the walls of the buildings while hurrying along the road. Orlando led us to the end of it and we dove into a cluster of bushes. Here we took a breather, and checked that nobody was following us. They weren’t. A good sign.

  In the twenty minutes that followed, we moved further away from the area while still maintaining close proximity to the fence and staying parallel to it. Finally, Orlando stopped outside a towering office skyscraper.

  “This should definitely be high enough,” he said, his eyes panning upward.

  Unfortunately, there were more Bloodless in this building. A few too many for comfort. I helped Orlando get rid of them this time. While he tackled a group of ten, coming from our right as we entered the dim lobby, I sent fire blazing at the crowd coming from our left until together we had managed to clear a path deeper into the building.

  We had to fell more Bloodless along the way to the top, but finally we reached the roof. We staggered out into the open, back out into the freezing cold. A merciless wind whipped against us, stripping me of any small amount of warmth my body had generated during the climb up here. I sparked a small fire to warm my hands while we scanned the skyline.

  “Oh, look,” Maura said. “There’s the pier.”

  I could see it now, too, on the other side of the fence. A concrete platform extending into the water, either side of which were small boats. The vessels looked old and neglected. God knew what state they were in, but they were floating at least. Which meant that perhaps they would sail.

  “Have you ever navigated a boat before?” I asked Maura.

  “Never,” she replied.

  “Well, you’ll have to figure it out somehow,” Orlando said, “if you don’t find any working communication equipment on board any of the boats. You’re going to have to try to get away to find somewhere that does.”

  Maura nodded stiffly, her lips tightening.

  I scanned the area in front of the pier on our side of the electric fence. There were quite a lot of trees in these parts, and also what looked like a small parkland area.

  “So,” I ventured, “the logical thing would be to navigate Maura over the fence, as directly in line with the pier as possible. Which means having her glide over that greenery.”

  “Yes,” Orlando agreed. It seemed that Orlando and Maura had already come to a firm agreement in their minds not to spend time looking for more mechanical parts to toughen up the wheel. They exchanged glances, before Orlando said, “Now we should wait until dark.”

  Grace

  The cold was getting to us on the open roof, and it was too dangerous to stay up here for long with helicopters still roaming the skies. So we headed back down into the building. We found somewhere on the top floor to hide out in—a ladies’ bathroom, whose windows gave us a good view of the streets surrounding us. Although this area had not been densely filled with hunters when we had arrived, to our disconcertment, more and more figures began to move about the streets as the hours went by.

  Aside from the Bloodless and IBSI, there seemed to be an increasing number of gang members too. Orlando managed to spot Paul Stokes moving along with a crowd of equally threatening-looking men. They looked like toughened brutes through and through, many of them wandering in this cold weather with their chests bare.

  We tried to distract ourselves from the filling streets by talking over every single detail of the plan for later that night. Until there was nothing more to discuss on the subject. We all knew what our roles were and what we were supposed to be doing.

  Now all that was left was for me to give Maura the phone numbers. I left the bathroom briefly and moved into the office next door where I found a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote down every single number that I had memorized, in case one of them was busy or unavailable. Then, folding up the paper, I returned to the bathroom and handed it to Maura.

  “Make sure you take one of the waterproof boxes and stick this in
there,” I told her. “This whole operation will be for nought if you lose them.”

  “I know,” she said tensely.

  She took a few moments to look over the numbers and verify that she could read my handwriting, then cracked open one of the waterproof boxes and stuffed the paper inside. She placed it securely in her backpack.

  The sky grew darker as we waited. Though it wasn’t all that much of a contrast, given how gloomy the days were here. I glanced out of the window, surprised to see street lights that were on.

  “They’re not gas lamps, are they?” I asked Orlando.

  “Nope. They’re electric,” Orlando said, also looking surprised. “Seems that this part of the city has kept its flow of electricity. Because of the IBSI’s presence, no doubt… I guess that they use electricity to run the crematorium, too.”

  The crematorium. I couldn’t make the large construction out so well from the angle our bathroom window was positioned at, but as I recalled it, I still found the concept strange—the fact that they still kept it working. Why even bother to clear the streets of bodies? Why worry about it? This place was a pit already.

  And while I was asking questions, why exactly did they want everybody contained in this area anyway? Maura, Orlando and the other convicts were failed experiments; I didn’t understand why the IBSI even cared what happened to them now that they’d finished their testing. Or perhaps they were just containing them because of the government’s insistence—since the IBSI had scooped the convicts up from the state’s hands, it was their responsibility to ensure that they didn’t cause trouble for the rest of society. But then I would have thought that it would have been much simpler just to get rid of them once they proved to no longer be of value. Why bother bringing them here for a slow death?

  Hm.

  The slamming of a door made all three of us leap from our skins.

  It sounded like it was coming from the other end of the hallway, outside the bathroom.

  “Oh, no,” I breathed. “They’re searching the building. They’re searching the building!”

  Orlando was already rushing to the broken window. He started the blade wheel and navigated it through. Then he grabbed the edges of the pane and, without warning, swung his feet outside. Gripping the remote between his teeth, he lowered his feet to a ledge beneath the bathroom window before he looked up at us with urgency. “Follow me!” he hissed. “We have to hide beneath this ledge.”

  “Beneath that ledge? Wha—?” I gasped.

  “There’s another ledge beneath it. Just come!”

  Oh, God.

  Maura quickly followed her brother while I stared at the two of them, lowering themselves down with an absolutely horrifying drop beneath them. There was nothing attaching them to the building but their bare hands.

  My hands were shaking as I grabbed hold of the windowpane and followed their lead, swinging my legs out. I moved further down until I felt the ledge. Then, with blind faith, I lowered myself down further still. I had not been able to see a second ledge, so I just hoped as I reached out my foot…

  A hand grabbed my ankle and planted my foot in place on the second, lower ledge. Orlando. Thank you. I did all that I possibly could to not look downward as I arrived next to the siblings. If I did steal a glance down, I was sure that I would either have a heart attack or scream.

  Orlando navigated the wheel with one hand, round the side of the building. Thank God that thing was quiet. We had to just hope that it would be quiet enough.

  We heard voices now, coming from inside the building and drifting through the bathroom window. I gazed upward, experiencing vertigo. At least the first ledge—the one above us—was wide enough to shield us from anyone looking directly downward.

  Although I was too afraid to look, there had been hunters beneath us too. If they spotted us out here, then…

  I didn’t have time to think further about the situation as the door to the bathroom swung open and louder footsteps sounded through the window. The doors of bathroom stalls creaked open and shut. They were searching for me.

  Then the footsteps approached the window and I sensed someone’s presence just above us. All three of us stopped breathing.

  “Anyone in there?” a gruff voice called from the corridor.

  There was a pause and then a man replied, in an equally raspy voice, “No.”

  Slowly, the footsteps moved away from the window and back through the door.

  My relief would have been far greater had I not still been perched on this harrowing ledge.

  We waited until we could no longer hear any footsteps whatsoever, neither in the bathroom nor in the hallway, before daring to budge. Since I was closest to the window, I had to begin climbing first. My hands felt numb from the wind and I struggled to gain a grip. I gritted my teeth, willing all the strength that I had left in me to flow to my hands as they wrapped around the upper ledge. I heaved myself upward until I managed to reach out and grasp the window pane. I pulled myself through and went tumbling headfirst into the bathroom. Even as my injured leg connected with the hard bathroom floor, I barely felt it. I was too relieved to be back on solid ground. Maura and Orlando piled in through the window after me before he brought in the wheel.

  After verifying that the men had indeed left our floor, we shut ourselves again in the bathroom and slumped down against the wall, breathing deeply.

  At least there was one good thing that came with that scare. Whoever had been here—hunters or criminals, we had no way of knowing—had searched this room now, so hopefully they wouldn’t bother to come searching it again anytime soon. Hopefully, we would be safe here at least for the next few hours, until the streets were emptier and we were able to risk Maura beginning her flight.

  Grace

  As the night wore on, I was beginning to fear that the streets might never empty—these roads surrounding us which previously had been fairly quiet had become busy with inmates and hunters. But when the early morning hours drew in, finally, the area became less populated. Not empty, for sure—but emptier. Which would have to be good enough for us.

  Because we couldn’t wait much longer—after all, morning would arrive in a few hours and it would start getting lighter. It was now or never. And Maura had realized it as she gazed nervously out of the window.

  The siblings met each other’s eyes, and they nodded in silent understanding.

  “I should go now,” Maura said quietly.

  Wordlessly, Orlando stooped to pick up his wheel. He handed it to her. “Let’s just check that it’s working okay first,” he murmured.

  After donning her gas-mask helmet, Maura gripped the wheel and raised it above her head. Once she had indicated to her brother that she was ready, he nudged the remote and the blades began to spin. He put it on full speed, and thankfully, it still worked—it managed to lift her off the ground, however slowly. She looked strained as she clung on, rising higher and higher toward the ceiling. Orlando made the wheel hover for a while, still testing its endurance.

  Then he lowered it, returning Maura’s feet to the floor.

  “So, it’s still working,” he said to her. “Are you ready?”

  “I’ll never be more ready,” she replied.

  “Right.”

  Maura moved forward, closer to Orlando, and wrapped her arms around him. She buried her head against his chest while he hugged her back. I stepped away and turned my back on them to look out of the window and allow them at least some semblance of privacy.

  It was hard to imagine what Orlando must have been feeling in that moment. I didn’t have any siblings, but the thought of being responsible for anybody embarking on this crazy flight was enough to give me chills, let alone someone as close to me as my own sister.

  “We are going to do this,” Orlando said. “And we’re going to succeed. You’re going to succeed.” He spoke firmly, though his uneven tone of voice betrayed his doubt. “You’re going to reach the other side of the fence. And then you’re going to find a phon
e. And all three of us are going to get out of here.”

  Maura arrived next to me, her fingers curving around the window sill.

  Orlando approached with the blade wheel. He handed it to her again. Luckily, the window was wide enough to hold the diameter of the contraption, which would definitely make takeoff easier. Maura stood with her feet apart, the wheel raised over her head.

  Orlando and I stepped back.

  It was hard to believe that the moment had finally arrived. But for the sake of all of our sanity, it was a moment that we could not prolong.

  Maura realized this. She nodded a final time to her brother and tightened her grip on the wheel’s handles.

  Orlando started up the rotor, which began to spin and lift her into the air. She hovered upward until her feet were level with the window sill. And then Orlando moved her outward… Outward, outward, away from the safety of the bathroom floor, and over the hair-raising drop of more than a dozen stories.

  If only she could have zip lined this distance instead.

  I dared not even budge an inch from my spot, lest it distract Orlando. He looked like he had broken out into a sudden, heavy sweat, as perspiration dripped from his forehead. His eyes were so intensely fixed on the remote and his sister that they bulged in their sockets.

  I could no longer make out Maura’s expression clearly as she moved deeper into the darkness of the night. Though I could imagine the terror flashing in her eyes. Thankfully, the wind was no longer strong, and I realized that it had even stopped raining.

  All good omens.

  Now we just need to continue this lucky streak.

  She’ll make it to the other side. She will. I know it.

  I tried to cram my head with as many positive thoughts as I possibly could to drown out the fear eating away at me.

  I scanned the streets that she was directly above now for signs of movement. There was nobody, at least not in the stretch that she was soaring over. Slowly but steadily, she crossed all of the roads and reached the green area, moving closer to the trees.