Arclight. Josin L McQuein

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СКАЧАТЬ a tiny thwack.

      The sirens come a minute later, followed by the rattle of security shutters dropping into place. A hiss of air expels from the room as the door seals shut, and the ventilation system kicks over to a self-contained unit.

      I jam my hands over my ears, ducking to the floor beside Mr. Pace and counting the seconds until the seal’s set. It’s an awful sound, too much like being shoved into a cage and having the door slam shut. Sure, the Fade can’t get in, but we can’t get out, either. The line between protected and entombed is much too thin.

      In the far corner of the room, Tobin sits alone, choosing fury over fear. Hard, brown eyes narrow toward the door, as his hands bend his stylus nearly in half. His rage is no less terrifying when it isn’t directed at me.

      The alarm changes one last time, reaching its peak color. The blinking bulbs above our door and window stop, and instead each side of the room begins to glow. Backlit panels pulse red, painting us all the color of fear. And when the others run for the safety point on the back wall, Tobin still doesn’t move.

      We’re at Red-Wall; hiding under a table isn’t going to help anything.

      In the weeks since I’ve been here, I’ve never seen an alarm go Red-Wall. It always stops on blue caution when the Fade are at the outer perimeter, or purple warning when they come close enough to test our defenses. Before now, the light’s always driven them back. Tonight something’s changed.

      They’re inside.

CHAPTER TWO

      Light is safety; light is life.

       Blink.

       Flash.

       Blink.

       Flash.

      The room doesn’t look the same glowing red as it does in the pause between lights, and the surging bursts of color set me off balance.

      “Everyone under, now!” Mr. Pace shouts.

      Anne-Marie crawls over from her desk, tugging my hands away from my ears where I’ve covered them.

      “Marina, come on,” she begs, as we scramble into the huddle at the back of the room.

      We become a massive khaki tangle, with a single heartbeat and breath we all try to hold, like everyone but me holds hands. The Fade want me bad enough to risk death under the high beams, so tonight, my peers shrink from me more than usual.

      And still Tobin sits, waiting. The stylus in his hand finally snaps, staining his hands and uniform. He catches me staring and looks away.

      Mr. Pace uses the bracelet on his wrist to unlock a cabinet we aren’t allowed to touch and reaches for the high-powered rifle kept there. He checks the scope, palming a couple of clips to stash in the long pocket of his camo pants. He snaps one into the gun with a loud click before shouldering it with the sight trained on the door—our human fail-safe, in case the locks don’t hold. Not that a flesh-and-blood man will be much of a barricade if concrete and steel crumble, but if he’s willing to stand between us and death, we’re willing to pretend it’ll make a difference.

      “Where are they?” someone on the other end of the tangle whispers.

      “What’s going on?”

      There are plenty of questions, but no answers. This can’t be all I get.

      My time’s been spent adjusting to my wounded leg and figuring out how much medicine it takes to kill the pain without killing me. Weeks and weeks of fielding questions about my life before the Arclight, shrugging my shoulders when I get tired of saying “I don’t know what happened.”

      I just got my life back; it’s too soon to lose it.

      I know I’m supposed to be dead, and I know the others would be better off without me, but allowing the Fade to kill me won’t bring back the ones who died for me.

      “Tobin, get under,” Mr. Pace orders, checking to see if we’re in position.

      Tobin doesn’t say a word, but his posture screams defiance while the rest of us cower beneath our useless shelter.

       No one survives the Fade.

      I hear those words every night, but my survival tells me there’s a chance. Why should we accept defeat? Why not fight back? Why not live?

      I rise to a crouch, with my weight on my good toe, ready to spring when the time comes, and try to fill in the blanks of my memory. All I need is a jolt to start me in the right direction.

      Gunfire ignites in the hall outside our door, though I’m not sure anyone else recognizes the clustered pops for what they are. Practice hasn’t prepared my classmates for the terror of live ammo flying overhead; they don’t know the hot sting of a bullet ripping flesh and muscle, nearly breaking bone. To them, it’s a lesson—one I hope they’ve learned.

      I tip forward until the weight of my body burns my fingertips, tilting my head to catch the sounds beyond our room and breathing deep to center my nerves. Gunfire’s a good thing, I tell myself—only humans use weapons, so there are still humans left.

      “Tobin!” Mr. Pace tries again, but he doesn’t abandon his post. “We’re running out of—”

      Everything goes pitch-black.

      Time. We’re running out of time.

      There’s a scream, just one, but it comes from everyone and everywhere at the same time. This is the worst part, even in practice. Humans can’t see in the dark, but the Fade can.

      At least I can still hear. Our elders tell us the Dark is dead silent, and that my time there made my senses sharper. When I first came here, my eyes weren’t much better than a Fade’s for taking light, but they’ve adjusted. So far my hearing hasn’t, and I don’t want it to.

      “Shades!”

      Mr. Pace shouts over our panic, and the training sequences take over. We reach into our pockets for the tinted glasses kept there, so we’ll be prepared when the lights turn back on.

      If the lights . . .

      “Gloves!”

      Mr. Pace turns this into a drill. Compliance is automatic.

      “Hands!”

      Everyone stands and we sort ourselves out in the dark. Jonah emerges from the jumble first, pulling himself hand to hand along the crowd until he’s at the door and calling out his name to say he’s in place. We’ve done this so often, I know how he fidgets, and the way he hunches to look smaller.

      Another hand grabs mine as the next of us moves into place.

      “Anne-Marie,” she yells back. If she’s keeping up, she’ll be sliding her right hand onto Jonah’s shoulder so she can follow him blind, and the routine СКАЧАТЬ