Cyndee was first through the hedge. She helped Mary with the tote, and together they helped Alex. But Alex’s clothes became caught in the branches, and she was stuck. She urged them to go without her, but her sisters continued pulling at her arms and legs. Behind her in the garden, one of the pikes attended to his fallen brother, while the other hacked at Hattie with the crop.
“I’m going to back out and come around,” Alex said. “You guys—” Suddenly the hedge around her erupted in exploding leaves and twigs, and Mary and Cyndee dropped to the ground. Alex’s own body shielded them from the fléchettes, but she was being ground up before their eyes. They crawled for cover. Mary was hit, the tote was hit, but the two evangelines found a forest path and ran. The path meandered between cottages and seemed to double back on itself. Cyndee pulled Mary into a copse of maples and elms. They ran between paths. Mary was completely disoriented, but Cyndee seemed to have her bearings. They had to stop eventually when they ran out of breath. They fell to their knees in the lush undergrowth.
There was a burning pain in Mary’s arm where a fléchette had passed through without striking bone. Her sleeve was bright with blood, but the wound seemed minor, and she paid it no attention. It was the tote she was afraid for. A fléchette had entered but not exited, and syrup seeped down its side. One of Cyndee’s bladders was also leaking. “Here,” Cyndee said, thrusting it at Mary, “put this one in the bag and this one in your togs. The clinic wall”—pointing in the direction with a stick—“is over there. Not far, maybe a quarter klick. When you reach it, turn right.”
“What about you?”
Cyndee probed the ground with the stick and pried up a large rock. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“You’re crazy,” Mary said.
“So are you, Mary Skarland. When you get out, send crash carts.” Cyndee kissed her sister, gathered up her rock, kissed her sister again, and headed back the way they had come.
THE LIFECHAIR IDLED twenty meters from the pressure gate.
“What about the distance?” Samson said. “Will we get up enough speed? I don’t want to die of a broken ankle.”
Belt Hubert said, “I’m releasing your lap belt and uncoupling your Foley. That way you’ll fly off and hit head first.”
“You’re a good helper.”
“Thank you. Ready?”
“Tell them this is for Ellen Henry Starke.”
“The media is still patched in.”
“She needs me, and I’m coming.”
The chair’s micro-turbines revved up, and the chair thrummed with energy.
“Ready?” Belt Hubert repeated.
“Is Kitty clear yet?”
WHEN MARY REACHED the imposing clinic wall with her leaking tote, she was beyond exhaustion. She slumped in a near faint behind a large oak. Her breath whipsawed through her open mouth. The tote bag lay next to her feet, its side wet with syrup and blood. She wrenched it open and looked in at her passenger, afraid to see a ruined mockery of their sacrifice.
The skull lay in the corner of the tote, in a puddle of syrup, its crown completely exposed to the air. The bone was pockmarked with holes where wires and tubes had run. Scraps of raw skin hung from it.
Mary reached her bare arm into the syrup and hunted for the fetus. She thought she felt its heartbeat but couldn’t be sure. The skull’s eyes, in their lidless sockets, seemed to follow her.
Mary tried to untie the knot in the foil glove bladder, her last one, but it was too tight. She searched her pockets for something sharp. She tried to bite through it. Then she heard a buzzing sound next to her ear and was startled by a mech hovering there. It had a jeweled head of blue, and Mary thought it must be a clinic bee.
The bee alighted on the foil glove for a moment, and when it lifted off, there was a thumb-sized hole in the glove. Mary poured the syrup over the head, meanwhile keeping an eye on the bee. It seemed docile enough, but when she tried to stand up, it opened a tiny frame with a Uglyph that meant Keeping Still. Immediately, she heard footfalls crashing through the undergrowth. She huddled against the tree trunk and held her breath, wondering if the pikes’ visors could image through solid oak.
The footfalls grew nearer. Mary looked all around. She was trapped. Suddenly she was staring into a mirror. Her own grimy face startled her. But it wasn’t a mirror. It was a holofied sim of herself, complete down to the bloody uniform and tote. Her mirror image showed her a “You Are Here” map of the clinic grounds, with a pulsing arrow pointing the way to South Gate. Mary was closer to the gatehouse than she had thought. Then her sim double got up and ran in the opposite direction.
Mary heard a grunt of surprise on the other side of the tree, followed by the swoosh of fléchettes. The pike swore under his breath when he missed the decoy, but he did not pursue her at once. Instead he called in. He spoke in low tones, but Mary heard his half of the exchange.
“Repeat that,” he said. “Negative, she’s heading east toward A-three-six.” His tone sounded more inconvenienced than concerned. There was a mechanical click as he reloaded his weapon. “How’s Reggi doing? Say again. No, deploy the battle lid and clean up the mess. That’s an order.” The sound of his voice trailed off in the direction the bee had lured him.
Mary waited until the pike had disappeared into the trees before rolling the tote around Ellen’s head, tucking it under her arm, and dashing to South Gate Plaza. She didn’t slow down until she reached the pressure gate. It was shut solid. There were two shapes on the other side. “Reilly?” she cried. “It’s me, Mary.”
Reilly’s reply came through a speaker over her head. “Mary? What’s happened to you? Are you hurt?”
Mary looked down at herself and felt her arm with her fingers. “No, Reilly, but they’re killing my sisters. Please let me in.”
“No can do, Mary. We’re in Orange. We’re locked down. But I’m ordering a crash cart for you. Hang in there; help is coming.”
As though from a distance, Mary heard the voice of another russ in Reilly’s intercom. He was shouting at Reilly to drop the gate.
“Reilly,” Mary said, “I don’t need a crash cart, but send carts to Feldspar Cottage. There’s three—four dead there. And one more behind me in the woods.” She waved her arm behind her where she and Cyndee had parted. “But, Reilly, please, bend the rules for once, can’t you, and let me in.”
Inside the gatehouse, Reilly unhooked his baton and pointed it at Fred as he replied to Mary, “I would do anything in the world for you, Mary. You know I would, but you ask the impossible. I’m forbidden to open the gate while we’re in Orange.”
“At least take this through,” Mary said and held out the rolled-up tote. Fred approached the gate, but Reilly jabbed him with the baton. “I won’t tell you again, Planc. Leave this block at once.”
A shower of fléchettes bounced against the gate above Mary’s head. She ducked low to the ground and ran along the gate to the end of the plaza where, with a parting look, she disappeared down a path. Reilly watched her go, and Fred used the distraction to wrench the baton from his hands. A man in a groundskeeper uniform approached the gate and watched them struggling for a moment before crossing the plaza and taking the same path as Mary.
Fred slipped behind Reilly and caught him in a choke hold with the baton. He pressed him against the hot pressurized air. “Open the gate!” He screamed.
WHEN MEEWEE, THE doctor, and the medbeitor passed the lifechair, Meewee saw that there was an emaciated passenger inside. “What do you suppose?” he said.
“I’ll look,” the doctor replied and stayed back, but before Meewee advanced much farther, the chair tooted its horn and shot past him, accelerating at a frightful speed directly at the pressure gate.