Preston hovered his lantern over the leg.
While Preston looked at his leg, it came together for Owen.
“The satellite,” Owen said.
“What?”
“You said do you remember on the ramp a few minutes ago. Then you stopped talking. You were going to say do you remember the satellite.”
“Don’t worry about that now.”
“These are printouts, aren’t they?” Owen said, taking the crumpled list from his pocket, bloodying the fine paper with his hands.
Preston let out a brittle laugh. “How would we print anything out? We would need a computer for that. Maybe now. Maybe with this equipment—”
“You hooked Gail up to it.”
“What are you talking about? “
“Jeroun, in the bunker—he mentioned someone named Gail. He said you were her little servant. There’s only one Gail I know. The only Gail I know is the name of the smartphone Cecile turned on.”
Preston’s eyes were invisible in the dark corner of the room, but his head went back in a sort of guffaw. “That’s ridiculous,” he said, “Cecile was taken with the phone. You know that.”
“It all makes sense now,” Owen said. “Cecile asked you to search the interior of the satellite, to see if you could find anything else. You must have found another phone and stashed it away. That’s why you were being so secretive. That’s why you wouldn’t let me into the Barnyard bunker. You’re keeping a working smartphone secret from all of Seeville. I bet it told you to come here. I bet it told you where to find all this stuff.”
Owen noticed that Rourke, Thorpe, and Jeroen were looking his way, oblivious to the battle going on just outside the room.
Rourke walked slowly over to Owen. He smiled and said, “you’re hurt bad, aren’t you.”
“No,” Owen said. “Like I said, it’s just a flesh wound.”
“Actually, it looks very serious.” Rourke said, and he exchanged a cold glance with Preston.
“No, really, it isn’t,” Owen protested. “It just cut the surface. I can walk fine, and I’m sure I can ride fine as well.”
Rourke was grinning now. Why was Rourke always smiling?
Owen said, “Preston, tell him…”
Owen hadn’t been paying attention to Preston. Rather he’d been trying to decipher this new byproduct of Rourke’s insanity. So when he saw the look on Preston’s face it was too late. It was a look of sorrow, but at the same time one of determination. In his hand was his dagger, poised over Owen’s leg.
It was like slow motion, tearing through his pants and flesh. The accompanying wave of agony wrenched his torso forward. “Fuck!” Owen cried out. “You bastard… you bent fucking bastard.”
Preston withdrew the dagger and Owen managed to scurry awkwardly away, his leg throbbing in pain and oozing blood. He pressed his back into the corner of the room and pulled out his own dagger, staring back in defiance. Then he shifted carefully over onto the nearby rampway, where there was more cover.
Preston looked down. He wouldn’t show Owen his eyes. “Owen, you… know too much. They told me I would have to—”
Thorpe interrupted, sounding annoyed. “You should have just killed him.”
Preston slowly looked up toward Owen. His eyes were a storm of emotion. Then he took a cautious step in Owen’s direction with his knife at the ready.
“Preston! What the fuck!” Owen cried out, trying to make his friend see reason. At the same time he tensed in readiness for Preston’s attack.
Jeroen was looking out the door. “They’re waving us on,” he said. “We have to go.”
Thorpe glanced out the entryway. “He’s right. We’ve reached the line with Chester.”
Thorpe said to Preston. “Leave him. He’s not going anywhere.”
Preston stopped stalking forward. He slowly turned around to the entrance, keeping one eye on Owen.
Thorpe left first, descending the rope ladder. Rourke and Jeroen gave him a burst of cover fire. Owen heard another series of shots coming from the platform.
Rourke took another bundle of equipment and left. Jeroun followed.
Preston was last. He glanced over at Owen, hesitating for a brief moment. As he maneuvered himself into the light of the entryway door, Owen could see his eyes were raw. But then his teeth clenched, and he began scaling down the ladder. His head cleared from view.
More gunshots. Someone yelled, “Go, go, go!” in the distance.
Owen crab-walked up the end of the ramp and over to the opening, using only his arms and good leg. He watched Preston mount a scouting bike that was trailing behind the departing platform. Rourke was firing the machine-gun, issuing sporadic bursts at the bandits trailing them, and occasionally up the hill where they had come from. Most of the bandits retreated to cower in more covered positions.
The platform pushed steadily up the hill, away from the tube, away from Owen. Owen thought about calling out to them, but he knew it was too late. Even if he could expose their treachery, the platform wouldn’t stop for him, not with their momentum built up, not when they were being fired on, and not when Owen had a useless leg.
Many of the Spoke mules had pistols in their hands. They were firing the occasional shot to keep the bandits at bay. They paused at the top of the hill and shelled the bandit positions with several bursts from the machine-gun. It was enough to make the bandits think twice about poking their heads out.
The bike platform and scout bikes started moving again. They descended the other side of the crest unencumbered, and were soon out of sight.
The bandits cautiously came out of hiding. Owen noticed some of them were skulking on the nearby slopes. They scrambled out of their covered positions and toward the doorway, crossbows pointing his way.
Owen pushed himself toward the back of the room again, his leg protesting with violent surges of pain. His heart was beating furiously, forcing blood to still ooze out of his tortured limb.
He felt incredibly thirsty.
What should he do? What should he do?
He managed to stand up on his good leg and hop forward, gaining momentum quickly. The world spun for a moment, and he nearly propelled himself out the entryway before catching the wall with his right hand. He lay down on the floor, braced his good leg on the wall and started pulling up the rope ladder from below.
A profound feeling of weakness had taken hold, slowly consuming him. It felt like the world was rotating around him. He tried to focus, tried to think, but all the blood and pain forced harsh memories to the surface.
Jakson’s gutted throat.
Newton’s mangled leg.
A few more rungs of the ladder, and with enough strength he could swing it upward.
Preston pushing his dagger ruthlessly into his leg.
He finished pulling the ladder up. He managed to push it haphazardly into the room.
His mother removing a stray piece of hair from his brow.
His chest heaved and still the world spun.
His sister crying in the sandbox.
An arrow vaulted through the opening and hit the ceiling, then landed on the floor beside him.
His father’s voice, crisp and earnest. “Don’t forget to close the door, Owen.”
The last memory was like an electric shock. It woke him from his reverie, like it so often did, but it also gave him a surge of will. Using all his strength he stood up tall, putting all his weight on his good leg.
He pulled at the metal sheet once, twice, and on the third time it actually moved. He placed it awkwardly over the opening at first, and then he righted it to cover it properly. He concentrated on stabilizing himself. He tried to get the world to stop spinning around him.
He heard someone yell, “Get a ladder!” from outside.